Dancing On The Void
by Heliosion
Summary: Welcome to the world of one that would do anything to accomplish his goal: Saving his village even if he draws his allies from unusual places. See him fight it with mysterious powers with intentions unclear and navigate past the maelstrom that is Mahora!
1. Chapter 1

"Neo Negima"

"Dancing On The Void"

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 1: The Start Of All My Troubles

Disclaimer: If I freaking owned Negima I would also have created Love Hina and if that were the case Mutsumi would have been with Keitaro. I may be a masochist but come on! At least Mutsumi was gorgeous!

**Member of "Otaku Town"**

XreviewX

Library Island. It was known as the land of books, the greatest concentration of wisdom, literature and knowledge in the whole of the Mundus Vetes or the old world. Whatever your personal preference many considered it the home of the fruits of humanity. Greek philosophy in their original papyrus, Roman scrolls… Almost every book or anything of importance at any one time that had ever been written down was here and likely a first edition. Some would tell you that if the book on the shelf was not an original print then the print was gone from this world forever.

It was beautiful at night. The streetlights from the surrounding main land glittered off the manmade lake merged in harmony with their old style streetlamps counterparts that were peppered around the old fashioned island making the small piece of land a sight to behold from any angle but especially from the air where several specially made observation towers for the tourists gave off some amazing views to enjoy.

A man in a black wetsuit and hauling a waterproof bag raced up the darkened dockside like some timorous mouse and carefully searched with a pocket light for the access route that would give him entrance inside the mighty institute of collective knowledge on the slimy moss sodden sea wall. What he was searching for so intently was nothing more than a seemingly normal circular access tunnel the Mahora magi used for maintenance of the GLCS system, (Global Linking Computer System) an advanced artificial intelligence two hundred years ahead of the nearest mundane effort that ran the Japanese supercomputer network concerning the powers that be of the magi world that controlled and oversaw the magical activities in this world. There was a secondary system but for some odd reason the Shinmei-ryu objected to two such systems being on the same island so the other was built on an underwater naval base facility near Okinawa.

According to the plans the man in the wetsuit had paid big money for the tunnels went down to the lowest levels where a sophisticated motion sensor spell was covering anyone who tried to assault the place while nobody authorised was walking around would alert anyone no matter what he did.

He had been grateful to those plans and the guy with a grudge that had sold him them. They came in handy as they exposed the light reinforcement spells used on the architecture preventing him from trying to use explosives to get in and the surveillance aerial sensor system hidden in a nearby clock tower that resembled a smaller big Ben in London back home that was preventing him from simply trying a parachute or teleport jump from an aircraft. It even made him think twice about simply waltzing in like the other regulars on the long arched bridges that was manned by a guard tower with at least four guards with magical lenses. Even a clearly unused dock for small boats was booby trapped to the nines with magical sink holes that snared anything as large as a pedal boat and so the man had done the only possible means of getting in there and that was swimming.

Even that had not been a cakewalk. In the bowl shaped lake the man had swum across he had to have counted sixty if not more layers of magical trip wires. Hundreds of invisible mines that went off when magic was used bobbed on the surface of the lit up water and projected as a whole seemingly infinite interlinking fields of energy. These acted like pressure sensors that would alert the automated illusion fields to disguise any inevitable explosions if such conditions were met that the mines needed to detonate.

It had been dusk when he had started and checking his waterproof watch on his gloved hand it was now nearing midnight. Still it could have been far worse. In the sky above the traps had been even worse than the underwater labyrinth he had been forced to traverse. Four layers of differing trap holes and flytrap spells were interlaced with only space enough for your average ant if it was careful about how it went about it in between. A single god soldier generator, surplus probably from the war in Mundus Magicus less than twenty years ago was also visibly pulsing energy to any mage smart to seeing it but that was on one of the lowest underground levels and again only because it was emitting the equivalent of the Japanese national grid in power on standby mode.

He was so tired, exhausted nearly for carrying both the oxygen tank on his back and the heavy backpack taped up to his middle but the prize was so worth all the hassle. His paranoia to not being noticed by the local authorities meant he had not even used magic since arriving here yesterday from Narita airport. The damn citywide barrier recorded every use of magic and stored it on a database at their HQ. Just to make sure the cautious type the man had rigged a three pound bomb of plastic explosive in an alley just beside their front entrance just in case the distraction came in handy.

Eventually after some feeling around and chanting a single mantra repeatedly the man disturbed a mirage that gave off the look that his fingers were immersed in water and discovered the circular metal service duct access point he was searching for. He traced its perimeter, disturbing another illusion that revealed to the searcher the keypad for activating the door.

The male removed a small device no bigger than his palm from under his tight wetsuit specifically his right wrist and clipped it to the numerical keypad demanding an access code. With a single press, the small square bleeped red and one by one the numbers of the code were deciphered until finally the device said "code sample stored" in red letters and automatically the door opened for him with a hiss as the rather formidable magi tech security screen, all six layers of it was depressurised.

Inside it seemed to be nothing more than a plain cylindrical tunnel. It was utterly featureless, shiny as if the metal alloy used to make it was polished and lit only by dim scarlet lights.

"_A depressing journey just got that bit more depressing." _The voice was not his, own inner voice but a woman's softer and sultrier at the same time but at this moment in time it seemed bored. _"I've had more fun devouring eunuchs."_

"_You can go back to sleep if you want Gaia." _

"_And miss the fun master?" _Gaia as she was now identified replied sarcastically. _"I want to be there when you find out the rumours of that book being here are false. I mean come on the man was even able to tell you how many levels underground it was. It can't be that safe then to house_ _the book of pure power they claim the tome of Melusedek has within it."_

"Go and fuck yourself," Negi said out loud. He unclipped his oxygen tanks and dumped it outside watching as it slid on the slightly raised slippery wall until a splash told him it was in the water where it would magnetically stick to the closest metal object and let off a homing signal he alone could track to find later if he didn't get caught out that is.

"_At least I manage my urges before missions," _Gaia sniped before going back into the depths of his soul to observe.

"At least I can keep my mind on the job at hand," he spat back murderously.

The entity known as Gaia was a useful demon servant of the highest rank or AA according to the new labelling system for demon rank used by the Paladin army but damn was she a bitch to keep happy.

Negi sat down on the cold steel of the entrance and pulled off his flippers using the sharp edge of where he was sitting on to catch the back of the rubbery material. He then with some difficulty because he had to keep low removed the tight wet suit he was wearing revealing a mane of shaggy red hair with one extra long bang on his left side that had been pleated at the tip. As more of the skin tight one piece suit was discarded it showed he was wearing a black collared shirt with a bulky dark green vest underneath containing many pockets that appeared full. He switched on another pocket light poking out of one such pocket and continued to show off more clothing this time baggy black pants that had some sort of loose belt for holding multiple ammunition clips.

He was quick to retrieve his bag and carefully he put on some dark blue trainers, tucking away his long hair hiding his blue stormy eyes then carefully extracted the device that had been used to open the door for him and rolled uncomfortably backwards to avoid the door eviscerating him when it closed.

"_Part one of operation "Steal magic book" is complete." _He gauged how big the tunnel was and felt happy he could at least crawl with relative ease.

Negi rustled inside the bag and efficiently wrapped two hand gun holsters to his thighs. He added two black handguns with screwed on silencers to each and tightly bound them to his sides to stop them from hanging and getting caught by either himself or the tight environment he was about to enter. On his back he placed another holster gun belt that held an old looking long barrelled single shot pistol. Mustard in colour and in the style of the old six shooters of the wild west, it was comprised of several cylindrical sections with a short trigger and butt perhaps indicating how it could be taken apart. The barrel chamber itself was of a great size and took up most of the gun's diameter. It looked to be currently loaded with an egg cup sized round.

Lastly he unearthed a large sack bag holding something bulky inside and ditched the last part of the waterproof bag which appeared empty except for one last parcel in this case another bomb. He primed it and set it off for it to go off if his magical signature flared like it would when he unsuppressed it. The resulting echo from the shockwave or maybe even the explosion itself though in itself highly improbable with all the magic geared towards damage control in this complex could cause chaos for the GLCS system and buy him some additional time to swiftly retreat the hell out of there.

Starting on his journey he had memorised the route and most of it was downwards.

"_Want to play I spy while we do this?"_

"_What about playing dead?" _Negi suggested innocently. _"Or maybe we can play at you shutting the hell up before I forget the way to wherever the hell we are going to game."_

"_Why didn't you bring a map?" _she asked casually. She was a veteran at ignoring his barbs or loosely veiled demands especially on missions like this.

"_No room for it after I put in the extra ammunition." _Negi was not a man to simply run out of something. All his demon gave him was a sigh before going silent.

He began his long and arduous crawl across the access ducts. At every intersection he past he left a small laser like sphere that projected the way back out when he used a switch on his watch to activate it that also handily doubled as an explosive when someone tried to tamper with the innocent looking devices.

For what felt like hours but was no more than fifty minutes since he roughly knew the way Negi navigated the long tunnel ways, stopping at twenty minute or so intervals and carefully checking his course and sometimes backtracking when he made mistakes. His laser pointers showed him where he had went before and of course he collected them on occasion taking care to disarm them as not to cause an accidental explosion that could potentially reveal his position and oh yeah possibly kill him.

Negi eventually reached something that was not on the map he had memorised. It was a dead end. Someone had clearly modified the network in the two year old plans and now it proved an issue.

"_What floor are we on master?"_

"_The fiftieth underground level I think," _Negi answered uncertainly, _"There should be no blockages at all in the network."_

"_I should have stayed awake when you were plotting this," _Gaia said exasperated, _"I forgot your sense of direction is worse than a blind dung beetle after it has had a few beers."_

Negi growled slightly. _"Are you implying I have gotten us lost?"_

"_No master," _Gaia replied,_ "I am telling you we are lost." _Negi sat down on the cold ground and took a sip from his bottle of water.

"_Whatever. It's not like this is a major issue if we just think about it." _The red haired mage examined the obstruction and grinned in satisfaction. _"It's newer compared to the walls around us." _It would be simple to remove if he could use his magic. _"Should have learned that kanka trick Takamichi knows but oh no I had to be a freaking hero and stay loyal to magic."_

"_The man respected you when you turned him down."_

"_I just didn't want to spend hours listening to him again about getting a normal job," _Negi retorted before adding, _"Don't tell him I said that."_ In one instance to bad mouth the man in private was good but Gaia had a skill in remembering conversations like this years down the line and using it to stir chaos and most of the time Negi did not mind this. It had its uses but this was bloody Takamichi Takahata, a gentleman Negi knew was a legend on par with his own shishou. Being on his bad side could and would stir trouble for anyone like him who was used to regular travel between worlds.

"_A nice espresso might buy my silence."_

"_Fine you have a deal." _It was the best deal she was going to get too. Negi was not in the mood for her antics especially when a fault had formed in his plan. After debating for a few seconds on how to proceed he checked inside his pockets for a small device with a hook on the end.

"_I'm going to head back to that last grille we passed and step into library 143 just by the cooking section and continue on."_

"_What about the traps? Why not just use the explosives you have on you?"_

"_The last vault has no passageways and I have no idea if the main barrier door is magical or covered in guardians plus like the updraft might burn me to a crisp."_

"_I like your suggestion better," _she hurriedly agreed. _"Messy death to you means messy death for me you know…" _The nervousness was justified. In his time roaming around he had once gotten briefly earned the nickname of "Insane Boy" for his recklessness before said moniker was wiped out when the beast man in question who made it up in his native language was vaporised by a magical explosion.

Negi backtracked quickly while following and collecting the pointing lasers on the way until he came across a man sized grille again shaped like a circle and smooth with no indentations to indicate it was even what Negi knew it to be. Below him was a looming darkness, permeated only by his small flash light. Before making the leap of faith downwards Negi had to first press a button to slide away the sealed safety glass his knees were using for support so the mage could use a tiny spy camera attached to a robotic arm he had to assemble to check for people mingling around outside even if was unlikely considering how sensitive some of the information inside was this far down.

Unsurprisingly the camera showed a library but with features that never should belong in a room filled with paper. He saw a waterfall in the centre of a pavilion of books all huddled together by a spherical bookcase. Around it was carpeted floors that looked new and a huge well hole that led to the lower levels that used a spiral staircase to allow someone to climb down.

Only issue was there were at least four separate barriers with spells buried into their matrixes on that hole that even the boy wonder here had not seen before.

"_Wish I had brought a reference book along," _he said resignedly to himself. He was a fighter by trade and obscure magical defence systems were not his speciality. This was going to be tricky.

The red head stalled to wait for a sarcastic comment to come but when it oddly never came true the magi leapt down gracefully onto the nearest bookcase stopping where his final destination was supposed to be only at the last minute. Negi had gracefully taken out and shot a small grappling hook he had examined earlier to slow his descent.

To only immediately afterwards have to snatch an arrow out of the air and to have to use it as a makeshift weapon to deflect the path of four others before finally a final barrage from above from god knows where in the eternal black above him came showering down upon his position.

Negi dropped the arrow, released himself from his support line onto the shelf, drew and took aim with his handguns to shoot each projectile out of the sky until none remained but splinters. He smirked at his excellent performance before spinning them around his index finger and blowing on their muzzles. He ejected the spent magazines from both of his Heckler & Koch USP Expert pistols and after using his harness to help slap new ones in, Negi holstered them with another spin.

"_Oi John Wayne!" _Gaia insulted, _"You could have just let them bounce off your vest you know." _It was followed by mumbling about him wasting ammunition when he lectured her not so long ago about it himself.

Of course the so called master ignored her.

"No sense of style," Negi said to himself, smacking his head soon after for making an audible noise that some trap could have been laid for. Then again his guns were still echoing around the underground chambers even with silencers after their use. Maybe it was safer than he thought.

"_No shit Sherlock," _Gaia said as if reading his mind.

Negi used a small combat knife in his sock to cut away the wire grappling hook that unfortunately had fallen prey to some unseen structural charm that was assimilating it to repair the crack it had made in the ceiling. He watched as the wire was drawn up too until finally it vanished completely along with the crack.

Negi took the time to be impressed with this self repairing library then went back to his business. He adjusted his torch, setting it for full illumination and casually looked for confirmation of where he was with the books beneath him.

"The magic of cooking Chinese and other magical delicacies of the orient?" the red head said to himself amusedly. He was in a magical section but having to land here on a bloody cook book shelf was quite amusing almost fate.

"_Get that one for me."_

For the first time the magi actually let out a deep chuckle at his servant's remark. The demon was truly the worst entity he had ever met at cooking. She could burn water. The mage was used to ordering in food or cooking it himself just to avoid eating something that a health inspector would order to be incinerated in the name of public health.

"_As long as I am not the one who has to eat it," _Negi japed back. He reached down and picked up the small leather backed volume from the shelf. It took some effort but he was just in reach of it without climbing down and risking the chance of the rickety shelf tipping over. _"I`ll try it after you promise to have it tested to make sure its fit for mages to consume."_

"_Wise move master," _Gaia whispered when he slipped it into the bag he was carrying that briefly exposed a round cylinder before he hid it away again. _"Still I will make you eat what whatever I prepare."_

He perused the titles some more, looking for some clue to confirm the floor he was on but found nothing. The sealed staircase was proving frightening to him to try and break down. He had some spell breakers, a sort of ball bearing sized magical dissipation device in a baggie in one of his pockets but they were expensive and hard to come by since you could only get them from the magical world.

Negi reassessed his options. He had a ton of ammunition so his stealth mission was still ago but he had other options too like he could always use those spell breakers to destroy the spell sealing off the staircase and then fight his way to the book then fight his way all the way back out. The bombs he had planted would come in handy but the only drawback to this plan was that Mahora city was no small beast man village with barely any trained defences or magical defensive systems. It was laden with more than Ariadne had just on the lake outside.

Option three was to find another way downstairs. That too presented the issue of time and the chances of being discovered by the watchers so ominously noted on the plans given to him and lastly option four was to simply abandon his mission and he was not going anywhere after getting so close to his goal.

"_Stubborn to the end will be what they put on your gravestone master," _Gaia sighed. _"I suggest option one master."_

"_Really?" _Negi said suspiciously. That was too easy. Gaia, the ever cautious when the chips were down had actually agreed to an assault.

"_Or you could knock one of those bookcases over into the staircase and see what happens."_

So he had an option five, a luxury for someone who lived a life like his and as expected it was a genius idea. These shelves were old and rickety. What would happen if one just so happened to fall into the staircase? It wouldn't be hard to knock one down and then see who came to investigate. Another plan could present itself.

"_Have I ever told you I love you sometimes Gaia?"_

"_Makes a change I suppose."_

"_So you want biscotti to go with that espresso?"_

A deep feminine laugh was all he received in an answer. Now he really owed her that coffee.

Negi reached for his spare grappling hook and as casually as anyone could be when they were freely letting themselves freefall jumped off the bookcase and again like he had done to descend into this darkened room he shot out the delicate looking grappling hook to slow his fall.

The red haired mage tapped his landing point on the olden stone floor with his toe in case of traps. To his luck at being so cautious the stone did depress and a square pit opened where below was an array of very sharp spikes.

"_Overkill much?" _Gaia quipped.

Unlike before the grappling hook was not assimilated by the wood of the book shelf above him and so he was able to swing himself from side to side like a pendulum until he had gained enough velocity to reach over to the other side. He barely made it to the perimeter by a few inches and yanked the hook free with a fierce tug before he was pulled back over again by his own momentum and just heard the sound of splintering wood as he did so.

Negi focused his light on the foundations of the massive shelf he had just been atop of. A solid barrage of gunfire looked to be the easiest method of dislodging the book laden piece of furniture. If not Negi was sure he could sacrifice a tiny piece of his explosives.

Negi was already missing his magic. One magical arrow could do the trick so easily compared to a barrage from his firearms.

Before the magi drew a pistol and took aim he was careful to throw a single book into the trap to make any patrollers who might come down here later to think a heavy volume of "Frogs and the best parts to eat from them" had caused the trapdoor he had sprung to spring. He could only hope the arrows went unnoticed until he was long gone from here. Upon using up a clip he was successful in making the shelf shaky and quickly discerned that after applying a well timed push the bookcase would collapse like a house of cards. With a hard shove at the right moment Negi resisted the urge to shout "timber" to dash out of sight when the bookcase loudly disappeared into the abyss.

For three seconds after he heard it hitting the bottom and being destroyed into a millions pieces by the stone walls Negi heard and sensed nothing. The spells keeping guard over the top of the staircase had collapsed from the weight as spells of that nature did for a few seconds before they reformed. Each second in wait for something to happen seemed to take forever until at last the place was suddenly illuminated by about a million burning candles from all over, hurting Negis eyes from the sudden brightness. His instincts told him to load in a new magazine and hide better among the undecipherable texts of some Armenian textbooks with his torchlight switched off.

He was rewarded with the appearance of a single man, tanned in skin colour that happened to be wearing the same brand of glasses Negi used to before getting contacts and a sharp suit floated down from above to rest on the floor. He was carrying a small firearm likely a nine millimetre in one hand and a ceremonial knife in the other. His short spiky dark hair almost hid away a headset that he was speaking into.

With help from the echo the newcomer`s conversation was loud enough for the boy mage to listen in. "Gandolfini reporting. It looks like a bookcase was the cause of the alert. Yes I think we can reset it in ten minutes when we recover what was left of it and the books themselves will probably be fine. I will begin my investigation to the cause of the collapse immediately. I'll meet Toko-sensei and Kataragi in the vault chamber."

Negi knew an opportunity when he saw it. Taking aim he waited until the man was done and fired a precisely targeted shot. It hit the man in the shoulder and right away he dropped his gun. Another well aimed shot hit the handle of the knife and knocked the blade out of the dark skinned man's hand. Negi stepped out of the shadows of his hiding place enough so his face could not be seen whilst making a noise to gain the man`s attention. The red head shot off one last round at his feet when the man went for his radio.

"Who are you?" asked Gandolfini dangerously.

"Doesn't matter," Negi replied. "Tell me something," the mage drawled trying to sound cocky, "What are you hiding in that vault and where can I find it?"

"As if I would tell a thief…" Another shot knocked his glasses off his face. The man touched his ear where it was now bleeding.

"_Showing off gets informants killed master."_

"I ask the questions," Negi warned, trying to sound ignorant of the likelihood that what he was looking for was what they were talking about. "What is in the vault?" Negi knew damn fine what was meant to be in the vault but having it confirmed from one of its guards made him feel more at ease. Most of what he had heard had been rumours, hearsay but it was better than nothing.

"It is nothing that would concern you!" Gandolfini said, remaining defiant. Negi responded by shooting him again, this time in his knee. He crumbled, groaning and muttering about being in pain. His cream coloured suit was now dashed with the colour of crimson.

"_At least he isn't like Wilhelm or Gaia and just pretending to be a human." _Demons of the higher orders were annoying with those powers. It was his first encounter with the former that made Negi when using guns use scarlet anti-demon bullets as standard. "Want to try that again?" Negi asked smugly, "Or do I just kill you and take my chances with your friends?" He had to have some sort of item that let him just appear like that through all the security. His interrogation was going nowhere and with his discovery his time here was running out. Negi looked for a ring or something equally as inconspicuous but at first glance nothing stuck out.

"Never!" he snarled, wincing when he aggravated his wounds. Scarlet rounds released a solution of unicorn blood that slowed down demons and acted as a very slow acting sedative to human targets as well as complicated the healing process.

"_Let me snare him," _Gaia said. Demon energy wasn't magical energy like magi used but there were wards that detected it when in use outside of this building. The magi hadn't included her in his plans pass the worst case scenario in case those wards worked inside buildings as well.

"_I can't risk it when I have the advantage." _Negi whistled at the knife the man had been holding that had become imbedded in the uneven floor and unluckily for Gandolfini who was looking on lamentably at it, the beautiful piece was being assimilated by the same reinforcement spell that stole the invader`s original grappling hook from him. "Tough break and all but now are you going to talk to me?"

With textbook precision the bespectacled magi replied, "I will not surrender anything to you so shoot me."

So Negi did what he was asked to do and emptied a clip around the enemy's feet. He made the combat mage dance like someone had drowned him in itching powder for his boring attempt at bravado and to cause him more pain from his original bullet wounds until the man was so shaken up he hadn't seen Negi throw a small round pink ball at him. It hit the dusty ground next to him and released a pink cloud of smoke that enveloped its nearest target and rendered him unconscious.

The boy mage changed the magazine once more and loudly clicked it into position. "It might invalidate whatever you use to move around here if I kill you," Negi whispered, removing the radio the man had and clipped it onto his own head. Negi didn't kill just for the hell of it. He was a seasoned mage of sixteen years of age and knew the lengths they went to secure this place would extend to the access control methods they implemented. To kill someone like a guard or an assistant in the big temples in the magical world always either set off an alarm or destroyed or rendered inert the magical stone or key card they needed to move around unchallenged by the magic running the joint.

The boy mage waited until the paralysis parasites in the gas were safely inside the magi's body before he approached. Holstering his silenced weapons he checked with his magical aura sight to see the parasites inside the mage eating away at his magical energy so when he woke up the man known as Gandolfini was powerless and likely going to be nauseous from the dead bodies of the artificial life forms floating around in his body. Negi collected the vanquished man`s gun and stored it into his bag so he couldn't be shot at later.

Negi rustled around in the man's clothes less than politely, searching every part of his body carefully and found nothing. Another two searches revealed nothing to indicate the man was carrying anything to control the security system.

"_Try looking underneath the underneath. I remember a former master who used to have his magical activation device disguised as a shirt button."_

So Negi did just as suggested. The wise demon had centuries of experience over him and this worked a treat when eventually the dark skinned man's belt buckle caught Negi`s eye. It just stood out as it was coloured ruby red in comparison to his cream suit.

"Sorry but it's advantageous to catch a man with his pants down." Gaia loudly groaned at the terrible joke. _"At least all my jokes don't involve sex all the time."_

"_Sorry for being a succubus master," _Gaia retorted.

"_You are better than Rubicante at least," _Negi said, playing nice.

"_Being compared to something that stays sealed in a talisman until its needed is such a huge compliment master."_

"_You could have ended up like Wilhelm before he got loose."_ Negi flipped the man upwards as he removed his belt less than gently. _"To be spend eternity stuck in a jar with no means of escape possibly for all eternity if the last idiot who owned it was smart enough to throw it into the bottom of a lake or canyon."_

"_Point taken."_

Negi examined the belt he had acquired. It looked normal enough apart from the belt buckle. Negi`s senses detected nothing. Was it some kind of passive lock? Or did it need a voiced phrase to work or worse maybe even blood or something more ingenious like a magical signature that right now was being digested by an infestation of parasites? Going through the realm of possibilities one by one he pushed it in innocently and discovered the wards at the staircase flickered until he let go.

"It can't be that easy surely," Negi said to himself. As he walked forward holding the buckle in the wards flickered more and more until finally when he approached it the wards vanished and were sealed in by temporary floodgates or seals that only appeared when storing unused magic in the circuit they made.

"_Yes sometimes even we get a break," _Gaia said in a monotone. Usually their luck ran out at the entrance to these sorts of high security installations. _"At least the motion sensor on the bottom levels won't trip anymore."_

Negi eager to clean up before moving on speedily bound his enemy's hands with some wire he had brought along. He made it so tight it drew blood when it came into contact with his flesh. Next he caught his dangling grappling hook, reeled it in then fired it one last time and stopped from dangling out of his grasp by burying the firing mechanism into a big dusty tome. To add further insult to injury he set the firing device to stuck mode stopping the wire from coming loose again and dragged the dark skinned man over to the edge of the pit. The red head tied the man's bound hands around the firing mechanism and pushed, leaving his once proud enemy dangling over the spikes.

"You stay there and play nice," Negi advised to the unconscious warrior.

"_Aren't you being a little sadistic master?"_

"_Will he try going anywhere in that position?"_

"_No…"_

"_That's the point of it. Nothing sadistic about it."_

"_Okay…" _Gaia was to say the least a bit reluctant sometimes with the way Negi kept people hostage.

Negi collected himself, checking to see what equipment he had left and then casually with both guns in hand he started his descent down the stairs once he was clear of the rune shield.

It took him an age to climb down and worst of all at least in his opinion nothing happened on the journey. His paranoia, battle senses that he had gained from years of all out combat both in urban and countryside battle fields were being put to use and the red head had found that the longer it took for something to happen the more agitated he would become. By the time he had passed through the spiral staircase with its uneven stairs, faded almost forgotten paintings on each of the levels and moss growing on all the walls everywhere the red head wished something had attacked him only to cure him of his stiff shoulders.

It hadn't helped when Gaia said nothing either as she probably was just as wary and more likely trying to help by keeping a watch herself.

In the end Negi entered a narrow corridor filled with bookshelves. The languages had become more obscure. Some Negi could read like ancient Greek and others he had barely a clue other than he recognised the various deities or old gods painted on the covers to recognise it from. It was another of the libraries interesting characteristics. Bookshelves seemed to grow in every nook and cranny not occupied by filth and booby traps.

"_I think the people who built this place were morons with nothing better to do with their time."_

"_Magi in the past tended to be frivolous master. Modern day magi tend to be far more conservative."_

"_What did the old magi you knew do with their time exactly?" _The book he had found her in mentioned one of her former masters being the legendary king, Solomon of the Israelites who used a magical ring to summon her and about a gazillion other demons with a mere rub on the black speckled pearl.

What Negi would do if he could get a hold of it but it was rather famous in mage lore about how he had thrown the damn thing into the mouth of a Cerberus in a fit of rage when it wouldn't obey him.

"_Mainly orgies and boozing master. They didn`t have much self control but magi seldom did in those times when all magical learning to you was just new to them."_

"_I bet sometimes you wished someone like them were your master don`t you?"_

"_It gets boring after the 1500__th__ time," _Gaia answered truthfully.

Negi completed his trek of the long and narrow corridor until finally he entered what wouldn't look out of a place in a computer game. A solid thirty foot curved shaped wooden door with more runes and defensive spells than anywhere else in this building stood. It was coloured copper, almost like dried blood and appeared impregnable. The stone block floor about 10 block by 12 blocks in diameter was flanked on all sides by a drop that was so dark that Negi`s powerful light couldn't see the bottom. On the walls were parallel silver candlesticks burning candles made from some sort of fat which really left off a stink reminding him of the medieval styled archive in the Paris catacombs that Negi had visited once when a tip off had said Nagi, his father had visited them at one point and Negi had been curious as to why.

"I am so glad I didn't use my explosives," Negi said, feeling satisfied. He dropped his bag, holstering one of his guns and placing the other on the floor beside him. The mage rummaged inside for a large pack of plastic explosives wrapped in stasis paper coloured blue that prevented accidental explosion even if an ignition source hit it. He unwrapped it, stuck in a detonator, in the form of a tube with a transmitter that he primed by turning his watch a 180 degrees anticlockwise then casually as you liked he used his baggie of magical dissipaters by slapping them into the mushy material.

"_I'm so glad you can't make me do this."_

"_Any other time I would."_

"_Evil bastard," _she murmured affectionately.

The boy mage carefully walked across the safe stone floor, making sure no hidden alarms or detection devices were in any of them then as he walked up the small missed at first glance stone steps he cursed when he nearly stood on the final stair that had been connected to an alarm.

"_For the ones who get too cocky," _Negi complimented the ingenuity being of a similar mind set himself. He reached over and pressed the bomb onto one of the structural supports on the frame.

"_I'll get myself ready for the summoning master."_

Negi approved silently of her thinking. The radio chatter had been nonexistent telling Negi that this was an exclusive network few had the privilege of listening into. It also meant a tightly knit group that would see them noticing a missing comrade faster than say an army unit made of many men or women. Negi could hear the tick of a clock in his ear. He knew he had little time left.

Negi reached his safe point and pressed one of the three nubs on his watch. Negi ran back into the corridor, collecting his dropped gun and bag before shoving himself against the wall for cover and concealment.

When all the smoke cleared and the bomb had detonated and it did take a while with all the dust around the neglected building his luck had ran out. The door had been utterly decimated, leaving an angry line of Greek letters burning into the frame of it. A fucking alarm and a damn well concealed one at that!

"_I'll use up my surprise and keep using it until I run out of ammo then after the first spell emerge and assist me."_

"_I understand."_

Negi unzipped his bag and holstered his gun. Inside was a compact machine gun, slim with a butt shaped so his fingers could be wrapped around it with ease. A laser sight that only he could see was switched on along with a sensor that detected movement. Negi slapped a clip into the underside near the strap he pulled over one shoulder and cocked it.

With the sensor to warn him he ran through the blackened remains of the doorway, past the scorched stone work and frazzling malfunctioning runes into an even larger chamber.

Negi balked at what stood in front of him. A small shrine with two stone statues potentially golems of some sort stood guard over a long stone altar holding a book. A long pedestal light shone over it making the pages sparkle like they themselves were magical.

"_No fucking way." _It was real. The book was here. He looked twice, admiring the plain ceiling. He couldn't believe it. No guards! No defences or spells waiting for him either. It was like the book was so holy that using such spells was an insult to its greatness. Negi`s feet moved before his brain engaged and he ran over to the shrine.

His sensor beeped and Negi turned and fired off a burst of bullets at a sword that nearly decapitated him. Blades of slicing wind from his left made him roll to the side hard onto the floor and shoot off another few rounds in retaliation.

"_They concealed their presence well master but remember we heard that Gandolfini telling them to meet him here."_

Negi bit his lip at that amateurish mistake. The book had excited him so much that he had forgotten all his training. Negi turned and readied his gun while was facing down the two threats he now had to deal with one he was familiar with.

One was a woman with long blonde hair, glasses and a look of anger in her eyes. She was slim, tall like Gaia in her true form and carried a specific kind of katana that made him immediately smell a Shinmei-ryu was standing in front of him. Negi had unfortunately went one on one with three of them at the same time once before and had been forced to flee. The suit combined with her hair and glasses were classic tell tale signs that she hadn't expected a battle.

The other guy covering her rear was a dark glasses and beard type resembling Takamichi. Well the guy and his dead master had made the look popular among mages. Dressed with an equally dark suit and reserved manner Negi knew his type. The wind blades had to have come from him.

"Surrender now and tell me what happened to my…"

Negi answered with gun fire. He was far too close to have to give up now. He released the blue locking spells overlapping his magical activation device in the form of a black spiral tattoo Gaia had made with him so his fighting wasn`t affected by a ring or by holding a cumbersome wand on the small of his back. It spread out to make bird like raven wings all along his midsection.

The woman valiantly deflected or cut the bullets in half with her superb swordplay but the speed he was firing and the rate too soon meant she was cart wheeling to stop herself being riddled with bullets.

Negi kept running into her path, cutting off the spell caster who was meant to be providing support by matching the swordsman`s movements so he could use her body as a shield. The boy mage had to switch clips twice but did so with an improvised sort of hand to hand combat where he used the butt of the gun as a spear at the woman's face aiming for her glasses. Her distracted state made it simple for him to shepherd her the way he wanted her to go until he was reloaded and they resumed their dancing.

"_As long as I can keep the gap between us short and stop her from using any of her techniques then I might not need to use magic at all!"_

The moment he thought that Negi`s vest was clipped by a blade of wind. The red head hissed that the woman had worked out his plan and had pulled a shundo to make extra ground before he had seen it. He forced the man to abandon his position with some shots and resumed his hassling of the woman with a more aggressive plan in mind.

He parried right from a swipe at his torso with her blade by putting his gun between the sword and his head, spun on his feet to get round to her side and punched her in the shoulder, following through with a sweep of her legs and a finishing manoeuvre when he brought the butt of his rifle down to land on her nose when she hit the ground.

Negi was blown hard into the pedestal of the altar before he could finish his routine. Damn the old man had adjusted his tactics as well. Negi had been so focused on his task the woman that the man had stopped firing wind blades and waited for either the swordswoman or the magi to make a mistake.

"_The book master!"_

Negi stumbled to his feet, his back killing him as he did and took the book from its pedestal and waved it in front of them like a shield. Naturally they stopped and looked hesitant but like any trained soldiers they regrouped.

"_Now what?" _Gaia asked.

Indeed that was a good question. The book was too big for his bag to carry and his machine gun was useless in one hand. The kick and propulsion of the recoil would tear his shoulder to shit without magic to cushion it.

"Look thief," the woman said hesitantly. Negi moved the book up so it obscured his face even if there was no point to it anymore. "Just hand me that book and we can talk about maybe…" Negi lowered the gun planning to lure them into a feint and beard made a move. "Kataragi wait!" the woman swordswoman warned, "If you hit that book our lives won't be worth living."

"Smart woman," Negi said, drawing a hand gun and aiming it at the book. "Allow me to go or you lose the…"

The man made a move anyway and tried a disarmament. He partially succeeded. Negi threw the book to the side to avoid it being destroyed but he was stripped down to his t-shirt and his blue briefs for his troubles. He cursed at their risk taking as well as admired the man's balls as his guns went flying everywhere. The clang of the odd shaped pistol that had been on his back clattering to the ground stirred something inside him. That gun was not cheap to find or maintain...

Without skipping a beat Negi rapidly summoned magical arrows, slinging dark arrows in a wide dispersal pattern before they converged upon impact. He was no idiot to assume such simple projectiles would finish them but the explosions and the dust kicked up would surely disorientate them. Another brief unincanted spell kicked the dusty debris up a tad longer.

"Where is he?" the blonde woman asked herself while Kataragi was spluttering. "Be more careful Kataragi! All you have done is made the situation worse."

Negi`s arrows landed constantly in the route to the book, Negi dived forward and felt the stirrings of a summoning taking place.

Around the mage a summoning circle glowed and grew until it was three times its original size. From within its interior three circles formed orbited by a depiction of the sun and the moon moving anticlockwise to the circle`s counter-clockwise. These circles, the middle representing the earth was burning a fiery red in colour and just as if the red light was guiding the way his faithful servant emerged from Negi`s body. The first thing that appeared was a transparent pair of bat like wings that was followed soon after by a slim body glorified with a feminine muscular copper skinned figure with an equally womanly femme fatale face. Her rouge lips and eyes blacker than coal made her silver hair contrast even more than her skin did. She wore what looked little better than rags that barely contained her ample assets both above and below.

"How may I serve you master?" She was giggling at the shocked expressions on their faces. "Do I kill them?"

"Leave them to me. Get the book Gaia and don't mess about this time."

"Yes master." She took off and zoomed out of his peripheral vision to skirt along the ceiling.

"I never thought I would get to meet a demon this far in the library," dark glasses remarked casually. He had taken control of the surrounding dust by calmly displacing it with his own wind spell and about time too since it would have been the first thing Negi would have done if their roles were reversed. He was trying to look cool too but that kind of magic any first year could perform with ease. Intimidation belonged to people who could make a man tremble and so far the teenaged mage had seen nothing to warrant this. They were good, gutsy but guts did not win battles.

Negi didn`t answer him. Instead he drew energy within himself and used a shundo to land in between his foes. Two magical arrows, one to each side of his head emerged and shot perfectly parallel to the other into the path of his foes faces. As predicted they parried, the mage foe merely parried by tilting his head with ease while the swordswoman did another of her elaborate cartwheels to reposition herself.

The red haired mage unincanted a single spell and a barely noticeable gust of wind blasted from all around him. The misfired projectiles stopped erratically like fish caught in a net and then bounced back in the opposite direction back towards their foes.

Negi jumped in the air and swung back with a flying roundhouse kick. The enemy mage proved he was only good for long range combat as he sluggishly blocked the offending kick only for a moment later to realise a magical arrow, the one slung at his partner earlier was heading back towards him and in turn the bearded mage forced his personal barrier fully forward to both push Negi away and block the blast.

He screamed when the arrow he had parried earlier hit him in his mid section, forcing him to topple forward. Negi dashed forward the second he landed, shattering the faltering barrier with a shape change of his own personal barrier to resemble a battering ram and followed through with an elbow to his exposed stomach. As Negi restored the shape of his shield, the red head completed his attack with a violent gust of wind that went off like a cannon blast sending bearded mage flying alongside his cigarette that the red head caught between the fingers of his right hand before crushing it in his grip and discarding it.

"_And that is how you use wind magic bitch,"_ Negi thought smugly.

"Master!" Gaia called out from above him. Negi looked up and winked when he saw the book snuggled between her breasts. Her translucent wings glimmered in the candlelight. "Please finish this up so we can leave already!"

Her plea was just in time for his senses to pick up on the attack of the recovered shinmei woman who had drawn a tantō from somewhere and tried to literally cut him in half. Negi stepped back one foot to dodge the katana and rerouted his personal barrier solely to his fist to parry the smaller blade. With the opening he made, he jumped into her personal space, magical arrow of ice surrounding his fist to make it harder and took a swing for her nose.

The swordswoman lurched backwards gracefully, her head touched her ankles as she turned her evasion tactic into a back flip, using her free flying leg to send a kick towards Negi`s face. Negi caught the offending foot clad impressively with a small heeled shoe on her small delicate foot and pulled her forward to lose her balance. Acting exactly the moment she stumbled, the red haired mage unincanted a blade of magical energy about the size of her katana over his right fist and took a swipe.

The woman seemed to have sensed it as a chi coated tantō miraculously blocked the blow before righting herself. He spun round and thrust it at her and again but this time her katana sheathed in her life energy stopped the magical blade.

"You are very good," Negi complimented. He was so into this fight he didn`t notice his demon`s increasingly loud insistence to finish things until a foreign feeling entered his mind. The damn demon bitch was draining away his enjoyment and the emotions surrounding it. Like he was swatting a fly he waved his hand at his demon to stop what she was doing while holding down the shinmei woman with his blade. He had the range factor as the tantō was too short to reach him. "Let me finish it! Stop bugging me."

He flinched at the small spike in killing intent from the woman. She was staring so hard at him, the killing intent was visibly shaking her glasses and a vein by her left eye was bulging from the effort she was putting into the act but it had to be exhausting for her if the woman was not used to employing it.

Negi grinned, performed a reverse shundo so his back was to the pedestal the book had been laying on and returned the gesture in good faith. His "intent" as no actual emotion was projected along with the pressure sensation caught her off guard. It was hard enough to do this with emotion but simple empty intent disorientated even the most hardened or murderers or the most saintly of good men.

He attempted a plucky disarmament spell and even Negi was amused when he connected. A thin layer of ice devoured her clothing, disarmed her of her swords and left her in nothing but her plain plead bra and half torn g-string. Negi showed his disappointment audibly with an irritated sharp gasp. He had been enjoying that fight too.

"Not bad," Negi whistled, dissipating the sword of magic blazing from his hand. The woman had the decency to blush and reached desperately to hold her lower undergarments and her pride together. She glared at him increasing her killing intent and only getting more flushed with the mage she was in battle with when he responded in kind. It was not surprising she was losing her self control. The magical incantation used had been only a simple magical attack he had employed to catch her off guard. He shrugged to himself and decided that he had better end this now the excitement had passed. (Latin) "Rastel Maskil Magister, Heaven`s voice, blow ill fortune upon the sinners that dwell within your domain. Render body free from soul and shake the foundations of the living. Frost god`s shivering breath."

For all its fancy Latin wording this magic merely struck the person attacked by it with a horrible chill like one was being buried in an iceberg. The woman shivered from the temperature of the molecules of water present in her body being lowered to such an extreme low so quickly she passed out from the shock with her body laid prone and her tenacious hold over her compromised undergarments torn away to reveal the normally shy Japanese spirit in their maidens did not extend to this bold specimen.

In fact his succubus, a master of seduction and charm said it best. "Hey she`s smoother than a good whiskey down there master!"

"And you said this trip was going to be a waste of time?" Negi joked to his demon. "Is the book safe?"

She held it out in front of him with a dirty smirk on her face. It was like she was a saucy kindergarten student showing off her "A" she had gotten in a pop quiz while expecting a reward.

"It`s all safe and sound my master." She flew down so her legs were at his head level and brushed off some imaginary dust with her clawed fingers. Her head suddenly turned towards the end of the room, scowled bearing her demonic fangs and did an elegant aerial forward flip on the spot to dodge a fast moving projectile of wind.

Negi followed her gaze and grimaced at the sight of the beaten bearded mage he thought he had taken out earlier. The man was wobbling precariously on his feet, most likely from a concussion and his hair was matted with blood from a head wound.

"I will take care of this," Negi stated. The mage summoned a hexagon shaped army of ice magical arrows around him, pointed with his hand imitating a gun and then paused for a second to take in the utter bewildering look on his beaten foe`s face who was really going to need a good tailor with the way his suit was torn and unleashed the battery of projectiles.

They impacted all over the stone floor, tearing the ancient stone into rubble and kicking up dust from years of unattended grime into the air like before. It was his cover to make his escape. He had dawdled more than he had expected he would for him anyway and made his escape, abandoning what was left of his attire. All that mattered was the tome held in his demon`s arms. Anything else was inconsequential.

Negi started to sprint towards the exit to the chamber. Gaia flew low to help him on his way and keep the book the teenaged mage desired so much in view in the dust storm covering their escape from the lowest level in case anyone else turned up to reinforce the guardians he had neutralised. If someone like Takamichi turned up he would need all the help he could get to get the battle concluded swiftly.

Then suddenly the moment his foot touched the border of the blasted security door a weird for lack of a better word at that moment chill filled the air. It was like intent but this went deeper. It caressed your soul and made his heart rate double, his breathing heavier and every biological noise his body made drowned his ears.

He was in the presence of a powerful mage. It felt like staring into the eyes of his shishou moments after releasing the power that Negi would one day call his greatest power. If he was an initiate at this point he had no doubt in his mind he would`ve been pissing his underwear at this moment in time.

Suddenly Gaia screamed. Negi turned round and found she had been impaled by glowing spears of confinement. A second later when the book she had been carrying banged heavily into the ground the same magical field used to summon her reappeared and the same circle that had glowed earlier burned again momentarily a fierce red.

"_I am in so much pain master." _Gaia`s limp voice inside his mind told him all he needed to know that her sentence came off as unnecessary.

"_I owe you that espresso for all your hard work Gaia. Now leave this to me."_

"_Yes master."_

"Who the hell is out there?" Negi picked up the book of Melusedek Gaia had dropped and opened to the index. He cursed when he couldn't read the strange symbols of the civilisation that wrote it straight off the bat and shut it. It was truly at least for the moment worthless to him until he could translate it but that would be another piece of the puzzle. Where was he going to find a translator for this? Still he had bigger problems at that moment that being the magi who stood in front of him under the veil of dust.

"I would have liked our first meeting to be on better terms Negi Springfield," an old man's voice asked in the dust field. "Your father was an outstanding individual so instead of all this tomfoolery could you kindly return my book to me. I have no desire to harm you."

"_Fuck." _Not exactly the most intellectual thing to think but it suited the occasion. (Latin) "Rastel Maskil Magister, Showers of air descend and wash me clean of impurity. Purifying shield!" Around him an air current whirled up around him in the opposite direction of the air drafting in from the unseen vents. He added (Latin) "Envelop" to push the air field that had been freezing his balls off outwards so he could knock the dust away.

It was not Takahata Takamichi. That man was preferable to the being that was in front of him. He recognised the man creating these powerful spells floating in the air at least from a picture he had seen in a newspaper once back in _**Megalosembria**_.

KonoemonKonoe, master of Mahora city's educational institutions and Library Island to the mundane populous of this town stood before him. To the magical world he was one of the most powerful magi of the Orient. The idea of fighting him was like Negi saying he could fight the Crimson Wing on his own with both arms and legs broken. He looked harmlessly enough with his unexplainable long white coloured eyelashes, beard and moustache. The ponytail despite the rest of his head being bald making him looked like the backend of a thoroughbred. He didn`t even have any great deal of height to make Negi feel intimidated and only wore loose hakama clothing. If he wasn't floating as if it was as easy as breathing you would think he was an eccentric, batty old man with funny shaped ears.

Negi Springfield knew better. Negi was strong, hell even being modest as he was Negi had rarely fought an opponent he did not believe he could lose to one on one but mere speculation and reputation this man had earned over a lifetime warned him not to act rashly. This mage had sealed the rift mainly between the Kansai and Kanto magical associations when the two sides had been tearing each other into bits since ancient times for the longest ever recorded period until recent times. He had slain several powerful demons, brought western magic to prominence after centuries of it being ignored by even his own people in favour of their own magic.

Negi had been given one piece of advice should he be in hostilities with this mage. Run the fuck away and never look back. The red haired mage had no desire to lose his book either and obeyed his warning. Still a plan to get away from this super mage was not forthcoming. He had to stall him.

"How do you know that name?"

"The database just informed me that one of Nagi Springfield's blood relations had used a spell in here and on this level. It doesn't take much to put the information together Springfield-san. Can I call you Negi?"

"Um," Negi said intelligently. This was not what he was expecting. Usually there would be a fire fight by now or some insults traded. An enemy being civil was just as nerve jarring as the emotionless intent he was generating earlier would have been for that fallen swordswoman. "Sure if you want um Konoe but since we both know I need and want this book let`s get the nastiness over with." He sounded confident but he was not fancying his chances.

"_You have one shot at this master,"_ Gaia said weakly to him. Just speaking to him was going to be draining her energy she should be expending regenerating those horrifically painful wounds she was bound to be rolling around figuratively in his soul in agony. _"Use him."_

"_In such a tight space?" _Negiasked uncertainly, looking at the ante-chamber closely,_ "Surely his emergence alone would tear this place apart?"_

"_With any luck your barrier will hold off the falling ceiling enough for the weakened shields to wither sufficiently for you to teleport to the higher levels. From there it should be easier for us to get some momentum to escape among the confusion."_

"_I`ll trust in your judgement then," _Negi stated pooling his great combined power within himself. His aura started to flare as the same magical circle he had used to summon Gaia started glowing again red. However the circle this time representing hell was illuminated.

"Can't we just let this end peacefully?" the old man diplomatically asked. It made Negi stall what he was doing but the circle stayed around his body, rotating clockwise as it was supposed to do. He was willing to listen for a secondary plan. It bought him time to think about what he was up to. "Gandolfini-san is recovering and I know that if you had wanted to you would have killed him and these people here I sense will survive from their ordeal. I know you merely desire my tome to revive your village but it is a magical book with far too much power for one of your age to possess. If you surrender we can just walk out of here and discuss this in my office Negi."

"_What do you think?"_ he asked inwardly. At the corner of each eye he spotted movement then just as suddenly out of seemingly nowhere the two golems guarding the pedestal for the book were right in front of him. He stepped backwards, his magic started to pulse as his personal barrier was reinforced with all his might.

"_Master," _Gaia piped up weakly, _"Magi of his class can use buildings under their power to do literally anything. Teleporting large enchanted objects like this are child's play to him. He did offer the option of surrender to you. I suggest you take it."_

"_If you think he`s on the level I`ll do it."_

"_I feel he isn`t lying to you and this is your best option. He could beat you six ways to hell and back and still wouldn`t be winded." _She let out a yawn that simply sounded like she had just finished a cat nap._ "I have to sleep before I start latching onto your magic for support."_

"_Good night Gaia," _Negi said sincerely. He stared up at the golems who had just acquired a sword and axe from somewhere and had no mood to mess around. He dispelled his summoning circle, dropped the book on the floor and slid it to the old man on an ice float provided by the boy magi. The old man warily picked up the volume with a pleased look underneath that giant moustache.

Negi put his hands into the air and sat down on the hard stone with his knees. He was surrendering.

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Dudes the (Greek) and (Latin) are just to tell you what language he's using for the spell as I have no time to translate every single one of my spells so live with it. Next time the adults have a meeting.


	2. The Binding

"Neo Negima"

"Dancing On The Void"

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 2: The Binding

Disclaimer: If I freaking owned Negima I would also have created Love Hina and if that were the case Mutsumi would have been with Keitaro. I may be a masochist but come on! At least Mutsumi was gorgeous!

**Member of "Otaku Town"**

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The office for Dean Konoe Konoemon, the headmaster general (that was his official title) of the Mahora educational institution was as big as one would expect from a guy who practically ran an entire city worth of schools from elementary schools right through to universities and cram schools.

It was easily the size of a basketball court and was fitted like the modern world and the ancient world in this case some old house in Victorian London were fighting a secret war and both were currently at a stalemate. The bronze light fixtures, made to resemble a rain drop that had just hit the ground were lit with energy saving light bulbs; the floor was green but made of the finest modern fabrics of the day. It was also fitted from top to bottom with wireless systems for computer use, the recipient of said systems sat at a corner dominated by a computer with a flat screen, wall mounted CPU but it had an old fashioned wooden desk and chair for sitting in.

Negi was not very interested in the decor all that much though. What caught his eyes was something no ordinary Joe would be able to perceive. The magic present here was absolutely saturating this space, the ceiling was a prime example as it was painted with a mural of some clandestine magical event but likely not noticeable to the mundane eye from the hue of magic one could feel wafting down upon them that would make anyone unfamiliar with it uneasy and afraid. The wooden panelling that lined every pale grey wallpapered wall stank of varnish, inflaming the young mage's nose. It was actually immersed in raw magical power, conduits to those with no understanding of magical ward schema that continuously kept the magical energy that was required to keep the master of this room`s defences active when he was not there to passively recharge them. It too fought a battle with the smell of what could be mistaken for air freshener but was actually a potion designed to relax people that was thickly sprayed into the atmosphere and most likely meant to counteract at least somewhat the effects of the ceiling.

Negi was standing right in front of a giant antique table, fresh from the battle a few minutes ago via a teleporting circle and still rather bare in terms of clothing. He noted the dirty brown coloured desk that seemed to only emphasise the dean`s lack of height from the great distance it left between the two. The dean himself sat in a comfortable looking ruby leather armchair that had large armrests for his small arms to rest against. The desk itself was currently bare except for a green glass lamp and a small stack of papers. Their contents were concealed by a green see through plastic pocket which had a giant insignia on it with the words in kanji for top secret.

The magic laced around those documents could, sorry _would_ blow off his hand if he dared to touch them or disintegrate a demon never minding if it had a contract or not. Negi backed away once he detected that missing the sarcasm that would have originated from Gaia if she wasn`t in a state of near death from the battle earlier.

Negi could sense other magic at work in this space that most magi didn`t usually set up and felt very vulnerable at the moment for it. The windows revealing that dawn would be approaching the city soon, were shielded from anything from a bullet to knowing the power of this mage, a rocket propelled grenade or anti tank missile. That stinking wooden panelling immersed in energy were probably lined with runes designed to strengthen the structural integrity of where they were stamped upon from natural disasters such as earthquakes or typhoons. When he focused harder, narrowing the width of his magical perception he could sense above the first enchantment in the ceiling a humming noise that only a mage could hear that the young magi used himself in his home that warned the mage using it of any hostile intentions from people both inside and around the room.

"Are you uncomfortable with the ward schema?" the dean asked, breaking Negi from his inspection of the room. Negi wondered if he had been showing signs of his discomfort. He straightened his stance and flattened the expression on his face.

"I kind of avoid these places usually," Negi answered cautiously, "Not many escape routes for me to use you see."

"I assure you," the dean stated, putting his elbows on the desk and leaning his off shaped head down upon his hands, "You have nothing to fear here Negi. I swear thrice I mean you no harm."

For an old guy like him saying an oath carried a lot of pride in that person that he would not break it. Negi trusted any elderly mage who made such an oath. It used to be part of their training before being phased out that a mage had to be good to his word and any that tried to break it while they were students no matter how stupid the promise was they were whipped without question.

"So," Negi started, feeling safer well _slightly_ safer anyway. His instincts had not gone off on vacation around anyone yet. "Could you lend me some clothing?" Negi asked, showing off his less than presentable attire. He wanted to go back and kneecap that damn bearded mage. The vest alone had been tailor made for the operation and was not cheap. "A cloak or something?"

As if like magic (which it was) the dean opened what should have been a shallow desk drawer and pulled out a simple hooded white cloak and floated it over to the boy mage who slipped it on with a flourish that showed he was used to travelling around in such an unusual item. His mind recited an incantation and a bubble of air cushioned his ass and allowed him to literally sit in the air. He massaged his shoulders, briefly debating something before finally with a snap of his fingers the air field expanded to surround his back and shoulders.

"Are you comfortable?" the older man asked honestly. The man was an image of serenity and humility. He didn`t look like someone who was talking to a thief he had caught in the heart of his domain. He was treating Negi like an old friend he hadn`t seen for a long time. To be frank the teen would prefer the old man was mad at him or trying to kill him. Having a nice adversary scared him a little.

"I am better," Negi replied neutrally. "At least I am not showing off my underwear anymore."

"Good then we can begin," the dean declared, pressing his finger against something on the side of his chair. "Would you like some coffee or perhaps some tea?"

"Sure," Negi started, "I`d like a..."

"Hello?" a female voice said from somewhere stopping Negi from finishing his answer to the request. It was filled with static and probably an intercom of some kind was being used. "Can I help you dean Konoe?"

"Shizuna-san," the dean asked, "Could you please brew me a cup of coffee and some tea for me," the dean asked, "Black and two creams for the coffee and the usual for me."

Negi was a little perturbed by the man knowing what he was going to say. His mental network, a series of magical tripwires albeit imaginary had not sensed an intruder but telepathy to a master was like an intangible hand going through a solid object to his hammering the solid object to pieces approach. He merely nodded when the old man nodded to his slight tilting of his head to confirm the request as if he had not been freaked out at all.

But the dude proved he could read his mind so playing calm and collected was rather redundant but he was not going to lose face by demonstrating his shock. Negi had some pride after all.

"Of course dean," the woman replied and a burst of static indicated on that end at least the call had been cut.

"It should be ready soon," the dean said, stroking his beard. His hand was on the folder in front of the younger mage and as the door opened behind them he less than subtly slid it into another drawer and locked it with a click with just his finger. A nice use of gravity magic, an area of the magical arts that was difficult to control in such an insignificant way. That old man made himself even more intimidating without realising it.

The woman that came in unannounced with a silver trolley sporting a pot of steaming tea and coffee was pretty and easy on the eyes. She wore glasses that framed her face well in combination with her blonde hair. Negi had glanced at her assets and noticed the way she walked had a sway to it he liked to watch moving. Her simple blouse and skirt did nothing to show off her womanly figure but the black tights framed her pins nicely.

"Your tea sir," she said to the old man, pouring him a cup on a saucer from a silver teapot and plopping two lumps of sugar into it. The all powerful mage accepted it graciously, stirring his beverage with a tea spoon before taking a sip. "Your coffee," the woman said with a smile to Negi as she poured in some cream and stirred for him before handing it over to him and departing without saying anymore.

"So magically aware is she?" Negi asked obviously as if everyone sat on bubbles of air to be served tea. The woman had no visible aura so was not a practising mage. She was too old to have an untrained aura so it was a natural assumption.

"She has no magic but yes she is from a magical family."

"Takamichi issue or just not interested?" Negi asked, referring to the famous son of Mundus Vetes who was freakishly powerful despite his inability to incant spells.

"The latter I`m afraid," the dean replied, "Her family only let her in on the secret while she was in high school and she decided that it was too late for her to begin magical training but she makes a good deputy."

"Not everyone has to do magic to be in on the secret I suppose," Negi thought out loud, sipping his coffee and enjoying the flavour. The woman sure knew how to make a good cup of coffee. "So," Negi said, holding onto the word, "Can we just get to the problem at hand? You caught me and I surrendered. What do you want from me?"

"Very direct," the dean murmured as if he was saying a compliment, "Alright I shall be straight with you." The man took a sip from his tea and put it down on a coaster on his desk, "You have come at just the right time for me. I am in need of a man with your talents."

"I am a treasure hunter," Negi said with a tone that declared that saying those few words would make the teacher think twice. It made very little sense for the red haired mage why the man would need one of his skills. The natives of this world had already plundered almost every single piece of their ancient world already. He doubted the dean was going to let a thief just leave his influence to go running around Mundus Magicus either and sure a treasure hunter could moon light as a mercenary, hell he was just as well known for the scarred battlefields he left behind most of the time when the shit hit the fan but even that was in little demand here. "What would you need one of my kind for?"

"I am aware of your occupation," the man said mysteriously, "You seek treasures that have the reputation of healing illness but I am in need of your expertise in relation to a common enemy we share."

That raised some hairs on the back of his neck. Negi had made a lot of enemies ranging from governments, tribes of beast men and secret magical organisations to say but a few in his illustrious career but who would be in that list that the dean would call a foe? Negi had seen his seat of power in action in Library Island but that was only a small part of a larger whole. It was arguable to say the entire educational city of Mahora city was his power base. It was why the red head had tried being so stealthy to begin with.

"Who would be powerful enough to threaten you?" Negi asked. He wished Gaia was awake. She was quite good at remembering the enemies to watch out for.

"I am of course referring to Cosmo Entelecheia."

Negi felt an urge to run away after merely hearing that name but suppressed it. Of all his enemies he had tangled with in the pursuit of a cure for his village they were the worst to shake off. He had for lack of a better word _stumbled_ into their notice when he burst open one of their bases, kidnapped one of their members and then blew the installation up in this case an old temple in Ariadne. But as his luck tended to be on this trip the item he was looking for had already been excavated and sold to an anonymous seller that he later stole anyway after digging for information for nearly two months. This had brought upon their wrath.

Oh and he hadn`t given back that operative he stole either.

They had power, influence and knowledge. They had fighters who ranked high in magical expertise and capable in some individuals of levelling cities on their own. They had made his life hell since then and his job a hundred times harder but they only operated in Mundus Magicus. His intelligence didn`t tell him of any operations on this side of the void.

"Why would you be interested in them?" Negi took a sip of coffee to cool his nerves. He was hoping the dean was not planning to make him pay off his debt by fighting them or something equally as dangerous or suicidal. He'd rather take his chances with the dean.

"It is not them directly I am actually after," he said trying to pacify the younger mage, "I am more interested in their association with a group of rebels called Seijou."

Negi felt the cold sweat slip down his neck but the breath he was holding came out audibly. It looked like he was wasn't going to be fighting Cosmo after all but Seijou or purity in English was a group he was not aware of but to be honest they had to be small or Negi`s contacts would have told him ages ago that Cosmo were involved with them.

"What do these Seijou," scoffing at the name of the group that sounded pretty pompous and those groups in his opinion tended to be annihilated for that arrogance, "Have to do with people like them?"

The dean slurped loudly with the remainder of his tea, showing his appreciation towards his drink and clattered the cup onto its saucer. He had a wistful look in his eyes and he was stroking his beard. Negi was no master of body language but that spoke of something personal and usually the polite thing would be not to push things along but Negi wanted to know what the hell he was being pushed into doing so the younger more brash mage cleared his throat to break the man out of his musing.

"Ah yes," the dean said, clearing his throat, "I am unable to answer that question at this time but this group are small but key to a movement currently sweeping through Japan especially the old capital Kyoto that are voicing their dissatisfaction about the current methods of magic being practised in this country."

"So rebels huh?" Negi rounding up what the old man had said into fewer words, "That might be a problem for you but again why do these small timers have links to big boys in Mundus Magicus like them?" Then it hit him. A stray thought reminded him of a battle well a skirmish long ago had turned out barely in his favour involving a member of Cosmo, a young blonde woman with a fetish for frilly clothing and swords. "One of them is a former Shinmei warrior right? A blonde girl with glasses and uses some kind of two sword technique?"

"I think you are describing a young woman by the name of Tsukuyomi," the dean clarified, "A girl of unusual skill and power for her young age not unlike you I might add."

Negi ignored the hidden compliment and pressed on with his questioning. He needed breathing space to think through what he wanted to do. Being hasty even if he was caught red handed trying to steal a priceless book Negi was no damn fool just to jump into something that could lead him in the general vicinity of bastards like Cosmo Entelecheia. "So the two have hooked up using her as I don`t know as a go between right?"

"Again I am unaware of this is how the two groups met," the dean remarked, his eyes downcast for barely a heartbeat but it was enough to show how frustrated he must be feeling. "Finish your coffee Negi."

Negi obeyed the command and finished the coffee in one gulp that burned his throat. It had gotten a little cool though. Could his magic over the building around him as Gaia had told him in their ill fated battle extend to something as mundane as the temperature of his coffee?

"So what is it exactly you want me to do? You have read my head. You know I genuinely know nothing about these rebels and messing around with Cosmo always leads to trouble." He added, "For me anyway," to reinforce his problem with tangling with Cosmo Entelecheia especially anyone in it.

"I read your head?" the dean said, looking genuinely mystified. It killed the mood they had been brewing.

"When you ordered my coffee..." Negi waved his hand around as if it would jog the old man`s memory. "You have to have read my thoughts since I didn't tell you what I wanted."

"Oh I do apologise," the dean said in apology, "After you get to my age and used to leading such a large organisation I'm a little used to having free access to the surface thoughts of my agents who work under me. They have never voiced disapproval before but it was very rude of me to..."

"I will survive," Negi interrupted dismissively, "Now about this task you have for me."

"Ah yes." The old man stroked his beard again, an annoying habit Negi had hated any magic user doing as it only reinforced a mundane person`s stereotype of what a mage was. "I want you to investigate these people for me on my behalf. I need an operative they won't know on sight to root out the group here in Mahora that I have been reliably informed are in Mahora preparing for an operation that so far the details of such I have no information about."

"That could take me weeks and I don`t have weeks dean Konoe," Negi said with resignation. He couldn't be shackled to this place. When he said weeks he was being optimistic. If these guys the dean wanted found were working in tiny cells it might take more than a year to root them all out. That was another year his village remained frozen in time, locked in stone cages while their survivors grew older. "Besides I don't want to touch anything Cosmo have their claws in. Can I just pay you say two mill and you let me go?"

"No," the dean said bluntly. Negi's air bubble collapsed and he stumbled to his feet and made ready to fight. The dean had undergone a transformation for the briefest of moments where the gentile old gent became a monster, a being of unimaginable power that only reflected in his stare but it had been enough to spook the red haired veteran of many battles. It reminded him of his shishou but so much well devouring. A void to his shishou's predator. They were both fearsome but on different scales. "I am sorry to press this issue but this will be how you will compensate me for all the fuss you caused in Library Island."

"What if I raised it to three million?" Negi asked weakly but a sharp shake of the headmaster's deflated football shaped head made Negi sigh in defeat.

"I will also allow you under supervision to peruse the book of Melusedek for what you seek. The book will only be readable to the owner of the book and will only reveal what you truly desire but only and I mean only after you have finished your task."

He could read the book of legends? The book of Melusedek, the magical tome to defeat all other magical books could be his to read if he did this? It was one hell of a sweetener.

"You would allow me to read it and copy down what I need from it?"

"If you bind the lettering of your notes to your blood then yes," the dean remarked.

Negi fell back; a cushion of air resumed around his body and caught him before it fell. Some manipulation of the air later and he was sitting back kicking himself for his luck. There was just one problem.

"Will I be expected to fight Cosmo Entelecheia if they become a bigger part of this investigation? I have barely escaped their leader twice before."

"Ah yes Fate Averruncus," the dean said, stroking his damn beard again. It brought such an irritation to Negi that the old man must have been reading his surface thoughts again as he abruptly stopped doing it and tucked his hand under his desk almost sheepishly but what truly went on with his smile under that damn beard was impossible to tell from where Negi was sitting to be absolutely sure. "You have fought him?" he asked curiously, "Twice?" he added trying to hide his incredulous tone. It was well earned. The bastard Turkish mage Fate Averruncus was that good.

"He wanted Shiori back and I told him where to go," Negi said, shrugging his shoulders, "Shiori is important to me and well you guessed what happened to us afterwards."

"Well unfortunately I can only read surface thoughts," the dean declared, looking at his tea leaves dregs and doing some D.I.Y. divination, "So please elaborate for me."

"Short story," Negi started, holding up a finger, "The first battle wiped out an entire trading town, people included and evaporated the nearby dam and," he continued holding up a second finger so he made a victory sign, "The second time he and I tore apart the Dusty mountains just outside of Phoenicus in a brawl to end all brawls. Both times he beat me and I fled just before he could finish me off."

"It is just as well I do not wish for you to fight anyone from that group. If they are in Mahora city without my being aware of their presence I will expect you to alert me and I and my staff will deal with them."

"If staff is a euphemism for Takamichi then you are severely underestimating them," Negi warned holding back the scoff that had threatened to come out, "He is a powerful man but he is not my father or my shishou. Hell I could take him." That last part was Negi accepting the situation. He was not seeing any wriggle room here and it was not directly a suicide mission. Indirectly Negi personally dreaded the moment Cosmo figured out he was hunting down an ally of theirs. "Just say I don't have to take them to the death and I will do it."

"Good then we are agreed," he said, ignoring the slur at his staff member that the Takamichi Takahata fan club would have killed him for. Fan clubs in Mundus Magicus were more dangerous than your average fanatic of this world. The last time the Nagi fan club and Takamichi appreciation society had an argument they had levelled two taverns and a brothel before the Ariadne knights managed to break them up. "Have you any requests before we discuss our requirements for this assignment."

"I need a secure com line and a change of clothes," Negi rattled off adding, "The latter first," he added finishing when he swore he saw the dean`s eyes narrow but it was hard to tell when he seemed to keep his eyes closed all the time anyway with, "If that is alright."

"That can be arranged. The outfit I can have Shizuna-san get you in a moment." He pressed the hidden intercom again.

"Yes dean Konoe?" the hot MILF asked, her radio voice was filled with a crackle.

"Can you run down to the high school student store and get me one standard medium male uniform, a school bag and a pass for a scooter."

The mentions of school and the uniform gave Negi some clues as to his cover. So he was going to school. He had never been to one so to speak. His shishou had friends who knew magic and they came round and taught him almost everything he knew that came to magic. It might be fun but the mage was a bit more distracted by the old man reading his mind so easily. The teenager clapped his hands irritably to gain the dean's attention and pointed to his frontal lobe. The old man bowed his head in apology.

"Is everything alright sir?" Shizuna asked delicately. The loud noise from his hands could have been alarming but Negi didn`t feel apologetic. The first chance he got he was buying one of those magi-tech mind shields.

"Everything is perfectly fine," the dean assured, "Just get those items for me as soon as you can. I have some transfer student documents for you to file." He didn`t give her a chance to say anything more by returning his hand to the desk. On a wrinkled finger was his magical activation device, a spiral twin banded ring with three diamonds glittering in the light. It had been hidden by the wrinkles in his hand. "Now," the older man said as if to start a conversation, "Do you want to make that call now? I assume you will need the use of the magi-net?"

"That would be great thanks," Negi said making a gesture with his finger to the unused computer then to the dean and so forth until a good natured chuckle and another deep nod allowed him access.

Negi dispersed with his air bubble flippantly, the released concentration of gases caused his cloak to flip up dramatically as he went over to the computer and turned it on, pulling out a keyboard from a recess in one of the wooden panelling. He waited until it booted up, clicked "guest" in the screen with the username and password was added and found he was in the desktop. The desktop projected like a hologram around him, the keyboard automatically slid back into its recesses and its disguise as a normal computer was negated by the holographic display that projected from the monitor.

In a light show to rival the Chinese New Year, a number of access control devices whizzed around him in many different languages both old and new. In shades of blue, red and green the various menus, options and screens appeared and morphed their shapes to his body within a few seconds as they adapted to the guest. Several options were sealed in black indicating files he was not allowed to access. He tapped his fingers down a few options until he reached a file listed as tracking system. It was in red rather than black to suggest it was restricted rather than blocked entirely from use.

Negi, with the speed of a practised hacker tapped the file and a password screen came up. He slipped the device he had used to copy the code on the access tunnel last night that somehow survived its encounter with a disarming spell and pressed both sides so a tendril of energy shot out and injected itself into the screen. In moments "code sample stored" in red letters appeared on the device and the red file became white and opened.

To his left hand a single screen opened up to his left hand complete with a series of buttons in the direction of the compass. He tapped each button that rippled, the window slid off into four smaller cubes that turned yellow, reformed into a triangle, circle, rectangle and the last remained in its square shape. Negi pressed the triangle, trailing his finger so several small bars appeared within the shape and another menu appeared listed as the directory for the communication network. He pressed down on the circle and an additional menu opened up that asked the user to activate the connections to the communication system with more folders within in white. He tapped a folder and a holographic model of the system came up. It was mirrored by the satellite that was in orbit and only visible by magi. He tapped the satellite, bringing up some program code and Negi promptly froze it by inputting the code stored in his device. The moving lines of code froze and Negi finished his little D.I.Y. job by tapping the neglected rectangle that made the system return to the desktop.

"I hope you switch the tracking system back on when you are done," the dean called out. Negi winced, forgetting the old man could read his mind better than he could.

"I`ll be sure to do that," Negi promised, inwardly planning not to just to spite the old man. He opened an icon on the holographic screen with a telephone of all things on it and that in turn opened another levitating window this time black with a telephone keypad. Negi typed in a familiar twenty four digit number, making sure to reveal an invisible icon so his thumb print and magical signature could be sampled. The screen changed to a progress meter with a slogan "Seeking the Future" underneath what looked like a title for a "Sanctuary" in blue block letters with a wreath of weeds draped upon it. This progress metre went from zero to a hundred percent until his call was connected.

What came up on the screen next was just an empty black leather swivel chair with a window view of an endless green plain behind it. A mountain was far in the distance and you could just make out another building or rather half of it that had a stairway going downwards like they had something like an underground level such as a cellar. Negi rolled his eyes and pressed the window to make a toolbar appear below including a symbol that looked like a bell. He tapped it and a ringing sound was made.

Negi Springfield did not have to wait long. The sound of a toilet flushing, a door banging as it was closed in a rush and finally the sound of feet off a wooden floor soon had a physical form when someone came running in with a flushed face and sat down in the chair.

She was female, gorgeous and had a body like an elfin maiden. She had the ethereal blonde curls that once sat around her ears long ago but now ran down to her ass because he once said she would look nice like that. She used her familiar black ribbon now to tie it into a ponytail and oh yeah she had long pointed ears. She wore her usual slim cut jeans that showed off her feminine wiles and pretty much nothing else except for an old t-shirt of his that the teen had no clue how she got hold of it.

Luna Shiori was her name and she also so happened to be the operative from Cosmo Entelecheia that he stole from them and never returned. Nowadays she was his number two who gave him support, information and handled his interests in both worlds. She put on a curved slender silver strand type of device and clipped it to her cheek. From both ends a thin thread shot up towards her ear and mouth. The strand that went to the ear entered an additional device like an earpiece Shiori exposed by pushing her ear back and tapping a button. The one to her mouth stopped when it came into range of her red lipstick lips where a small sphere like object opened up like a flower bud opening.

"Hello Negi," she greeted eventually, waving her dainty hand at hand cheerfully. "What can I do for you?"

"Hey Shiori," Negi greeted back, "You know that job you got me the special machinegun for?" Her ears twitched, a warning sign she was suspicious and the frown he was anticipating appeared not a second longer than he expected. "Well I screwed up and the guy who owned the book I was looking for caught me."

"Oh my god! Are you alright?" she started babbling, "How did you escape? Are you hurt?" Her blush was deep red and her fingers flew to her holographic keyboard as she started typing in contingency plans before he could explain his circumstances.

Shiori stayed simply because she was in love with the young mage. She had lived most of her life among her sisters, the maidens who served Fate Averruncus and did his bidding. When he kidnapped her to gain more information about the artefact he had been looking for in the place they had met he had locked her up in a dark dank cave room with nothing but a magical lantern for a long time in a time shortly before he recruited Gaia who made the process effortless. At first like all good minions she had said nothing. Negi interrogated her at random hours of the night, fed her food he wouldn't serve his worst enemy and occasionally applied freezing spells or disarmament spells to embarrass and humiliate her. Hell she had to piss in a bucket in full view of the outside. Negi had done everything to her until finally Negi was afraid of how far he might have to take it so he just gave up and asked her. He genuinely just tried the last resort and asked her.

That night he had shown her what had happened to his home by literally taking her to the memories of that time. They were sketchy, damaged by trauma but they made their point. Shiori broke down mid memory and wept. She didn`t stop weeping until long after the memory concluded but she got the message and gave him what he needed to know. Eventually after some time imprisoned in the Sanctuary and getting to know him somehow she and Negi just "mixed" and bam she dropped her entire life, shifted her allegiances and agreed to become his ally in exchange for a place in this land when the village was revived.

Negi had obviously agreed and they closely began to work together as they did now. That time together, the moments they shared together did something to both of them and well she was his only magical partner outside of Gaia and his demonic contracts. She had a pactio card and everything. In all ways Negi gained the only pactio partner he felt he would ever take on in his lifetime. She was what she called herself his "retirement" when they found the cure to the village's ills.

But right now she was showing why he never actively used their contract and preferred to keep the services of Gaia. When she wasn't leeching from his soul in a near coma that is.

"Where`s the fire?" Negi mumbled before whistling to get her attention. She winced as the communicator in her ear piece picked up the high pitched noise he amplified with wind magic but she was all up in a tizzy and it was impossible to talk to her when her imagination started running away with her. "I am fine. The dean has spared me from injury but I have to compensate him by doing a little job for him so I have to stay here for awhile. I need you to ship me some things to tide me over."

Her fingers went like lightning as she booted up the necessary program. Her blush had failed to fade but her look was determined, eager to help. She liked feeling useful so this job was perfect for her. It had only taken her six months to master the use of the magi computer system.

"The nearest container is in Pattaya, Thailand." She was silent as she looked at the contents of the crate more closely. "It contains clothing, a cell phone with scrambler and oh," she stopped with her mouth agape slightly, "I found that bike I couldn't account for in my inventory last week. Oh and you have an M16 and some incendiary grenades too."

"Send it all to me except the hardware as fast as possible and Shiori," he pressed a key that zoomed her image so only her head was all he could see, "I owe you one. Could you dig me up some information about Cosmo's links to a group named Seijou for me. I`ll call you with the cell and oh yeah send my things to Mahora city under the care of dean Konoe. See you soon Shiori." He blew a kiss and winked. She blushed deeply but returned the intimate gesture.

"Come home soon Negi." She pressed a button and her image disappeared. Negi logged out of the session and deactivated the computer, smirking as he had indeed not restored the tracking protocols as he had promised to. It was petty but hey the guy had strong-armed him into this. It didn`t matter that it was his own fault or anything...

"An interesting young lady I bet," the dean said with warmth in his voice.

"Shiori is my partner Konoe-san," Negi said, getting used to honorific grammar in his sentences as he would be using them for a while now. "She is very interesting at least to me Konoe-san."

"I had no idea you had been through a pactio ritual," the dean said, showing his joy at the arrangement. Pactio rituals were pretty special things after all. "I offer my congratulations to you and your partner. May I know who your bonder was?"

Negi didn`t see any harm in answering. It wouldn`t change anything. "We did it with Gaia, the demon you saw back at Library Island as the bonder on mount Snowdon. Luna Shiori is who I go home to back in the Sanctuary."

"Now that you are talking about it," the dean remarked. Negi couldn`t be sure but he thought the dean had been waiting for a moment to ask this question. "How are the villagers doing?"

"The sanctuary has them as safe as can make it and I know Shiori takes good care of them while I search." He was being evasive deliberately and the elderly gent got the message.

Sanctuary was another name for what was left of the village. It was a sealed dimensional hotspot, powered by the ley lines that encouraged the settlers that built the village to settle in that plain in the first place. The borders of the land itself were guarded by powerful dark magic, demons including a bad ass lord of the ninth circle, just one level lower than the "realm of those who cannot hear" (the literal name believe it or not but it made more sense when referred in the native language that gave its land its name) and nobody could see the place either. It was charmed to stop anyone getting any ideas of visiting the site as well. Those stupid to do so were caught in a dimensional tear and found a heartbeat later they were lost somewhere further down in the mountains with their memory erased and wounded lightly to simulate a traumatised trekker.

Some subtlety kept the mundane unaware and nosy old doddering fools that tried to visit the land away for the most part. The magi council of Wales knew to leave him alone especially the nearby Merdiana Magic Academy. They had already had words and Negi had disclosed its native guardians to them. It seemed to be working so far at preventing a full scale confrontation at least for now.

"I am happy to see that you are quite the mature one Negi," the dean said happily, "Your father would have been happy to know you have a partner."

"My father is dead," Negi said flatly. "My village was burned to ashes because of his past sir and its people reduced to stone." His body stiffened at being reminded of that time but nothing else except for hotness in his eyes that gave away this feeling. "If I had not been hiding in that cellar I would be nothing but stone too and never met Shiori or Shishou." Mentioning his dad always got his hackles up and he immediately offered an apologetic look that still had some of the hardness in his eyes whenever that subject was brought up and the old man took what he could without question and a disarming smile. Negi appreciated the gesture and was happy to let the matter drop. "Now if we could get to my cover story?"

Negi walked back over to the desk the dean was sitting behind, drew up another air bubble and sat down, bouncing slightly as if he was sitting on a trampoline.

"Well," the dean started, sounding like this was all a whim he had just conjured up for no apparent reason. The ease he held himself around a guy like Negi was still sending little shivers down his spine even after he had agreed to work for him. "I want you to attend St Michael`s high school as a student." That was a no brainer since Shizuna; the MILF had left to get him a uniform. "I will expect you to keep up with your school work while you are doing your real task. You will report all your findings to me alone and you will be expected to assist the main forces in emergencies."

"Define _emergencies_," Negi asked, with one eye brow raised. He wasn't going to be turned into an errand boy by the people he had just beaten up.

"High grade AA rank threats only like the bomb you left for us to disarm," the dean assured him, chuckling about something. Negi thought he had been rude but still whatever at least he wasn't going to be billed for a blown up building and a bomb crater from a bomb he had forgotten about in all the mayhem. It was not like he was trying to be polite either. "You will answer only to me. You will be expected to remain within Mahora unless you ask me for permission."

The red head had been expecting that condition. "That works for me. I might need to scope out Kyoto or Tokyo perhaps."

"That will be allowed. Now I have one thing to ask you." The old man stopped, stood up from his chair and stared out of the window as the dawn was starting to rise in a myriad of red, oranges and yellow streaks. "I know of your reputation for infiltration and escapology skills. So if you don`t mind I want you to accept a binding."

Binding spells were spells with nasty reputations behind them. For one thing they bound you. The second part was they usually sapped your power to make them work. But Negi was pretty sure he was going to be given on a more reputable device like a collar that kept him confined within usually intangible wards. The old man had no reputation for using any sort of "questionable" magic.

"Sure." Negi put his hand out lazily and the old man chuckled at the mage's understanding of what binding meant. He opened the magic drawer, pulled out a thin choker with a thin silver chain and spiral shaped sigil hanging from it made of pure platinum. Negi thought it looked kind of cool, fashionable hell at a stretch some kind of religious icon to keep the curious at bay and slipped it on no questions asked and without feeling a bit different afterwards at all. It was his knowledge and training that told him he was now like a bird locked in a cage.

Just then before Negi could make a quip about his new accessory, Shizuna, the hot deputy headmistress came back in with a plastic cover holding what he presumed to be a school uniform inside. The dean greeted her with a warm smile and ushered her in.

"Shizuna-san," the dean said genially, "Could you lead our new guest to his dorm room. When his things arrive from... What was the country again Negi?"

"Thailand," Negi supplied, rolling his eyes at the old man act or he thought it was now after spending time with him. He could not be this forgetful and run an entire city of schools. "It should be only a day or two. Shiori always uses teleporting."

"Yes Thailand," dean Konoe said, picking up from where he left off. "Have them sent to room 2003."

"Of course dean," the woman stated, turning to look at the teenaged failed thief. "Could you come with me? I shall introduce you to your roommate, get changed before anyone sees you like that and you can get settled in before starting classes' tomorrow."

"That sounds okay," Negi stated, getting up and walking carefully to the door. "I`ll see you later dean. I can buy my own supplies."

"They have already been bought for and sent to your room but thank you anyway. Good day."

With that the dean turned his back on him. Negi shrugged, happy he didn`t have to buy any of his school things and followed Shizuna outside before the old dean called out to him as if something had just occurred to him. "May I ask before you go Negi what was that demon you failed to summon back in Library Island?"

Negi stopped at the doorframe, looking out into a barren wooden corridor. The light illuminated some parts and he could see it looked just like a school corridor with some nearby toilets for just girls and an open sliding door to show off a blackboard.

"His name is Baphomet," Negi said ominously, applying a spell to allow sound to travel better into his ear just as he slid the door behind him shut. His face burst out into a grin at the sudden intake of breath or otherwise known as a gasp that came from the old man, the first time since he had met the man that the teen had managed to make the wizened old man lose his cool even if just for a moment.

It had been a long night but finally Negi Springfield had scored his first victory in Mahora city.

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A/N Well it's going to get started now. The preparations are complete. Here comes the fic.


	3. With His Foot In The Door Hell Lets Loos

"Neo Negima"

"Dancing On The Void"

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 3: With His Foot In The Door Hell Lets Loose

Disclaimer: If I freaking owned Negima I would also have created Love Hina and if that were the case Mutsumi would have been with Keitaro. I may be a masochist but come on! At least Mutsumi was gorgeous!

**Member of "Otaku Town"**

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Mahora city was a beautiful city when exposed to the purest sunlight. It stuck out like a duck out of water. It was made to resemble a European city in an oriental society like Milan or the majestic city of Barcelona in terms of architecture. All the buildings at least in the centre of this settlement were made of stone, smooth, pure as snow in colour and arranged purposely into a grid pattern so the roads and tram network did not get tangled or cause traffic jams.

Negi had seen quite a bit of the city on his tram ride across the city limits. As the sun was coming out of its sleep Negi witnessed the various businesses, most of which designed for young people or students awaken for their daily slog. He had seen elaborate universities with statues made of marble, shopping malls made to resemble majestic museums and even a giant magical tree that simply pulsed with magical energy of the like Negi had no qualms about identifying it as a magical catalyst, a natural magical phenomena that maintained the cohesion of all the magical systems, spells and other miscellaneous magical paraphernalia that depended on the magic energy of this city to work. And all of it from the pleasure of a rustic style tram with old fashioned wooden seating in the style of benches.

For the first time in nearly nine, ten hours he had finally found comfort from the beaten leather of his chair to rest his weary body upon and a hot lady next to him to admire when he felt she wasn't looking. Negi was still only using the cloak to cover his body but he had already cooked up a simple illusion to imply he was otherwise dressed to anyone who was not a mage. He was reading a large folder titled "Directives For All Independent Contractors" that had on its contents list, halfway through highlighted in green marker pen the firearm rules and a yellow sticky post it telling him in some old loopy scroll that he was banned from carrying weapons and only his Sceptre pistol, the one barrelled antique he thought he had lost in Library Island would be returned to him.

It had made him chuckle to see the effort put into making that point clear. Negi only used such things when he needed to be quiet, avoid using magic and in this side of the divide. On Mundus Magicus waving guns around got the natives curious and he preferred to do other methods such as hiring mercenaries to create diversions or releasing gases to clear the area and incapacitate people that way for him to work if he needed to be subtle.

On Mundus Vetes guns were not hard to explain in certain countries. He had done a job once in Columbia and people just treated seeing him running around with a M.16 assault rifle and grenades like a Japanese person would treat seeing a wooden sword. Waving magic around in this world, a place where the energy concentration of magic was about a quarter of the output Mundus magicus produced in three days was to say the least was a very poor idea.

Anyway Negi had the main map of the city and also his new folder explained to him all that he could do, could not etc and most importantly the schematics of every installation in Mundus Magicus and all the standard telepathy frequencies the employees of the dean used to contact each other around the city. All the while he read all the woman named Shizuna sat quietly next to him holding his school gear and acting all pleasant if he ever asked any questions.

The newly interned mage had tried to rouse Gaia, his demon but she was still asleep or the demonic equivalent and the teenager knew not to push it with the succubus. If he made too many calls she might threaten to cook dinner again.

Negi Springfield, powerful mage couldn't control the shudder that followed that thought. It roused his companion on the empty tram.

"Springfield-san?" her almost melodic voice said. Hell with the pleasantness she exuded Negi was thinking corny lines about her being like an angel.

"Negi," Negi stated, looking from his folder towards the pretty woman, "I am not really a student Shizuna-san," he said, adding quickly, "If I am _allowed_ to call you by your first name?" His lopsided smile had helped to alleviate a few wary females in his life.

Shizuna smiled; baring perfect pearly teeth and making him feel at ease. So yeah he was sure he was going to be given that liberty. The Japanese were so picky about things like that. "That would be fine _Negi_," she said, almost testing his name out. "We are about to get to our station."

Up ahead about two hundred metres away was one of a number of wooden platforms he had already passed called "Students Gangway". They were all built to be exposed on three sides with just a long dark wood back with various notices were nailed on and a single set of three steps for people to climb on and off the platform. They usually sat along sleepy streets filled with residences and homes while the few busy roads the trams shared with the cars and traffic had no stations of any sort. Instead several bus lanes were installed. All in all, the entire traffic infrastructure was perfect.

The train cart buzzed as the door opened and out stepped the blonde teacher followed soon after by Negi who followed obediently off onto the platform and into the street. A few business looking people stepped into the tram ahead of him, three were magical.

So it was true. There was quite a big concentration of mages in this city and especially for a location within Mundus Vetes. Negi was led into a street with a large four storey building with a few hundred windows and a gigantic entranceway with hundreds of stone stairs. The building was the same as the others in the city, made of stone and with cast iron balconies in every domicile. It was shaped like a great fortress and had some stone statues on the flat, fenced rooftop that Negi checked to see if they were animated golems on standby and to his relief they were normal.

There were some traces of magic. Some of the people inside were magical or practising mages. He could see clothes being hung out to dry from washing lines on top but it was so high it was hard to notice. He was fairly sure this was the dormitory he was supposed to go to. At either side of the street it led off into shops and other buildings like this one. There were no students yet but judging from the height of the sun at the moment that was to be expected.

"This is your dormitory," Shizuna said cheerfully, ushering him over to the stairs. Negi climbed up the stone stairway until he reached the top where he came upon glass automatic doors. He stepped into the building onto a smooth marble floored reception with an old gentleman manning a cubicle up ahead with keys hanging on the wall behind him.

"How are you Minamoto-san?" the old man asked jovially and with the white beard, a fashion maybe to all the old dudes that lived in this city like he was Santa Claus doing his day job when he wasn`t giving kids presents at Christmas. "And who is this young man?"

Negi felt something like a cold glass of water was being dumped slowly over his head and his aura flared automatically to counter it. This flare up stayed in place with a sensation of rain drops splashing onto his head while wearing a hood until it abated a minute later with no trace of where it had come from. All this occurred while Shizuna had a short conversation with the old geezer who never stopped looking at him while they chatted away. Nobody was getting any prizes for guessing who was doing it.

"…And so Springfield-san is now living here until his task for the Dean is completed. It was decided he would room with Inugami-san. They have plenty in common or so the dean believes."

That last sentence was common magical lingo for mundane ears that meant his roommate was a mage but the last part about the dean was puzzling. Negi smirked at the interesting mystery. What made this Inugami, Japanese for some kind of common malicious dog demon like him? The only person that matched his description was a girl gunslinger named Mana Tatsumiya or Tatsumiya Mana if you wanted to be particular and even then he was stretching it as she did only for the money. His was more like a mission of mercy that involved chaos and some cash when he could get it.

"It is about time that young man had someone to room with Minamoto-san. It does this old man happy that at last after so long this dorm is full." The old man reached for a key sitting eye level to him, only swivelling on his cheap office chair to collect and hand to the dean`s assistant a key. "He just got back from a show so he might not be too pleased to be disturbed."

"I could come back later," Negi suggested, killing the nice tone of their banter. The older people were old friends it seemed but he was tired and a tired Negi according to Gaia usually meant a mage that liked to play around. "Maybe you can let me crash at yours until it is a better hour to introduce us _Shizuna_?" He deliberately dropped the honorific to see how the old man would take that implied intimacy and the red head was not disappointed as the security guard/hall monitor type person looked at each of them a couple of times at them speculatively, almost contemplatively until he seemed to make his mind up when he chuckled at the blushing older woman and the sharp smirk Negi was positive could have cut glass if it were a sword to indicate the new student was playing around.

"I am sure he will not mind that much Springfield-san," the old man chuckled, slurping some tea from a clay mug. "Now you better scamper. If you need anything my name is Kamui. The phone in your room has a red button. Press it and I can speak to you anytime before 12 then you have to deal with the switchboard until 6am."

"Thanks," he stated, grinning that the woman still had not cleared the redness from her face. It was quite amusing. His sweet Shiori was just the same too. She hated it when he teased her in public not that they went out much unfortunately with their schedules and everything. "I`ll be sure to call if I need anything."

"It cheers me up to hear you say that Springfield-san."

"Great," he said, faking a yawn, "I better um get some sleep so you know…" Negi winked and bowed slightly.

"Yes Kamui," the woman said softly, "I better get our new student to his bed so he can start in the morning."

"Yes, yes," the old man stated, putting on a cap and giving the pair a wink. He struggled to his feet, bones cracking from probably mere minutes of non use. "I need to patrol before the students start waking up. Good day." He took up a cane and started walking to the outside.

"Now if you don`t mind Negi," Shizuna guided hurriedly, using her hair to hide her face. "We had better get going. We have to get to the top of the stairs."

"Lead the way Shizuna-san." Negi pulled the cloak over himself. "I am quite tired."

Shizuna and Negi walked up a set of carpeted stairs, seven stories in all with nothing said between them. Negi suspected she was still composing herself after his "slip" with the chat with the old watchdog and Negi took that time to fortify certain parts of his psyche. That scanning spell he sensed before was unknown to him and Negi had been guessing to be honest that it was a sensor spell.

They met no one as they ascended. The sun was barely shining off the white emulsion coating the walls. The stairs were old judging from the wornness of the red carpet but didn`t creak to indicate they were made of wood like he expected for some reason. Mages had an obsession with wood. Their magic required wooden wands no matter the length and few employed such drastic steps as Negi did with his spiritual tattoo or even metal rings. They were more of a recent development, like metal training wands so the stone buildings especially in Mundus Magicus where wooden ornaments or furniture were seen as signs of wealth were all over the place.

The pair stepped onto a landing with several numbered doors. There was some noise like muted music or sounds behind many of them that Negi figured were from computer games or music while he could hear something like running water like someone was having a shower. People, students were getting up for the day to go to school, learn and whatever else students did. Negi had seen some soap operas his precious Shiori watched when he was home and that was about it.

They walked across the hallway to a door right at the end of the hall that pulsed with some kind of strange magic. What looked like any other door to the normal eye was in fact underneath a cloaking spell of sorts a door plastered with papers containing red kanji symbols. Negi recognised the substance to be blood. He muttered a spell and made a swiping motion with his hand. The unfelt ice eroded the paper slips until they were too damaged to remain hidden and a sudden burst of heavy metal guitar tore outwards into the hall, echoing off the walls. It had been so sudden Negi had jumped into stance with a magical arrow of darkness floating from his shoulder. His hand had almost reached over to twist it around his fist until he realised what the purpose of those magical items had been and dulled the noise with a spell of his own.

It had brought out several residents but they soon closed their doors loudly to show their aggravation at being awoken or disturbed from their morning rituals and Negi had to deal with a clueless Shizuna.

"My mistake," Negi said as if it were an adequate explanation, "Though in my defence," he added, banging on the door. Another spell had been added to the silencing bubble he had erected roughly over all the room ahead so any sound made to the door was intensified in the hope that he wouldn`t need to chap too hard over the sound of the music. "His paper things would have made knocking pointless."

"I see," Shizuna said, "Thank you?" Her questioning gratitude plus that continuously confused expression had Negi snorting as the door was opened.

What stood before him was a shirtless demi-demon or hanyo clad only in a pair of tight jeans. He was very open about it with the pointed ears on the top of his head, the bared fangs as he yawned impolitely and the tail that wagged of its own free will. Negi smirked at how obvious it had been earlier with the name.

"Oh hey Minamoto-sensei," the man he presumed was Inugami Kotaro said lazily, scratching his toned bare chest with lengthened black nails while the other leaned on the door frame. On his wrist was a spiral tattoo like a tribal design Negi had seen once a long time ago in a demonic textbook.

"Good morning Inugami-san," she chirped. "Can we come in for a moment?"

"Sure," he said, opening the door more so Negi could see inside his new room and saw only shadows as black as his messy raven locks since the curtains was drawn. "But who`s this guy?"

"Springfield," Negi introduced, offering his hand, "Negi Springfield your new roommate and you are Kotaro Inugami, the hanyo?" he added, looking at the twitching ears and tail exaggeratedly. He was surprised to see them so brazenly exposed. In his experiences demi-demons, half demons, hanyo whatever title you wanted to use were quite iffy about exposing these parts, some sort of fear of xenophobia but yet again Negi had no idea if these paper things he had destroyed before had also carried a spell to hide this.

"You can see me?" he asked more irritated than worried. He looked around and saw the remains of his paper, "Fuck," he started to say before realising who was with him and shook his tired looking face, "Sorry sensei. You better come in." The hanyo ushered them in quickly into the dark room and shut the door behind him. The lights came on by means of a cool dimmer switch and Negi found himself in a bomb site.

The place was a total mess and Shizuna coughed from the cigarette smoke that lay burning in a glass ash tray on the floor. Clothes scattered everywhere and anywhere. It was built into two separate domiciles within one room. One bed that was presumably his considering it lay undisturbed except for junk all over it sat alongside the curtained window while another sat near the open bathroom door. It had wooden floors, computers at opposite sides of the room; a small kitchenette Negi was going to magically block Gaia from going anywhere near and that was about it except for of course the rubbish. Oh and the biggest sound system Negi had ever seen complete with an open guitar case with a black bass guitar sitting inside. Underneath the underneath Negi had detected the same paper things that were on the door all around the walls but they were split in two and of course his magical spell that was really too big that he adjusted accordingly out of a dislike for wasting energy for no good reason.

Kotaro cleared some clothes from where Negi figured he was sleeping, grabbing them untidily and then dumping them uncaringly onto the wooden floor. When he turned his back to them the teen exposed an additional tattoo in the shape of a beastly hound on his lower back. Kotaro was not long before inviting them to sit down, picking up his lone cigarette on the way and taking a drag.

"So what`s going on sensei?" Kotaro sat himself down on a chair that had been hidden by the clothing all over the room. Negi liked his directness. The mage was sure he was going to get along nicely with this guy.

"Well Inugami-san," Shizuna started, "As Negi was saying." Negi held his hand over his mouth to stop the snort at how she was still weird about saying his first name. "He is going to be living here and attending school from now on."

"Wait a minute," Kotaro said giving Negi a once over that he personally felt oddly violated as the guy`s nose had been twitching like he had been sniffing the mage, "Any relation to thousand master Springfield?"

"He's my dad," Negi said lowly adding sarcastically, "I'm his better looking son."

To his credit Kotaro did not even indicate that he had been slighted. "I've heard of you as well or at least what I know anyway from the chief," Kotaro stated, "Figured from all the stuff he claimed you had done back in Magicus that well…"

"I'd be taller or something?" Negi groaned. It was such an old line that it was hard to tell if he was joking or not. And who had been blabbing these titbits to the swordsman? It took him a moment to remember Takamichi Takahata was a teacher here. Negi was inwardly embarrassed he had forgotten that fact. "And that chief guy wouldn't happen to be Konoe Eishun right?"

"Yeah he's the boss," Kotaro confirmed, "Know him?"

"Not personally," Negi shrugged, watching the woman teacher that had been left out of the conversation leave his gear where he had placed the folder, "I've only met Takahata Takamichi and my shishou Rakan Jack from the Ala Rubra. I know his reputation though and fought people from his school."

"Um," the woman interrupted. Negi had almost forgotten Shizuna was even there. It was not often that he hit it off so well with someone or willingly volunteered information as easily as this. In his business information was power and paid well if it was especially juicy. "It seems Negi and you will be alright so I will be going." She stood up and bowed to Negi. "Be at class tomorrow eight sharp. Kotaro, will you show him around?"

"No problem sensei." Kotaro gave her lazy thumbs up that she gratefully smiled and bowed to.

"Thanks for everything," Negi thanked. Once the woman left the room Negi waited until she passed the membrane of his silencing field and looked straight at his new roommate. Kotaro had finished his smoke and was in the middle of lighting another. "So what the hell were the paper things I trashed outside?"

"That was you?" Kotaro said annoyed, "What stopped my neighbours tearing off my face?"

"Just a cone of silence," Negi remarked, "So what were they?"

"I am part of the shinobi branch of the Shinmei Ryu known as the Claws of the Dragon," Kotaro said, "So I'm skilled in the basics of Onmyoujutsu like those paper talismans you so nicely destroyed."

It made sense. Negi was not very aware of magic that didn`t come from his side of the magical world. Those talismans and omnyou arts were something of a mystery to him. These rebels he was supposed to find were from the Shinmei-ryu. Perhaps they used similar things and if so they didn`t seem too tough.

"So what do you do?"

"Guard duty over Konoe ojou-sama."

"I didn't know he had kids," Negi admitted. He didn't really investigate the lives of his father's comrades. He had only met Takamichi because the man had made the trip to find him once. Apparently Negi had taken off from his shishou's place a week before the teacher had come out to meet him unannounced. Their meetings since had revolved around the same theme: His choice of lifestyle. Their inevitable meeting in the near future was probably going to be the same.

"So why did he pick you?" Negi raised an eyebrow. "The dean I mean. What does a treasure hunter do in a place like this?"

Negi wondered if he should be honest about his assignment. For all he knew Kotaro was a spy for Seijou but if the dean could read minds like one browsed through a daily newspaper he assumed he was safe to say something.

"I got caught trying to break into library Island last night," Negi admitted, smirking at the hanyo's open mouth and dropped cigarette that was smouldering on the wooden floor and setting fire to a lone sock. Negi exhaled a breath and the cold blast put the fire out. "I nearly stole the greatest treasure on the bottom floor and had blasted some old chick with a sword, beard guy with wind magic and a tanned guy with a knife and gun." He honestly had forgotten the names of those people in all the excitement.

"I got a text saying three of the leaders were out of action during my gig last night," Kotaro interrupted, "It makes sense now. Thought Set-chan was just messing around with me."

"Yeah well the dean found me, skewered Gaia and then made me surrender in five minutes flat. Then we spent some time in his office and we made a deal. I have to investigate some terrorists called Seijou," he stopped noticing a scowl from mentioning the group that he didn`t want to cause a problem from asking about it and continued. "And root them out of the city and in return I get to take a peek at the thing I was trying to steal."

"You must be smooth to pull all that off," Kotaro said in appreciation before adding in curiosity "Gaia?"

"My personal demon," Negi said off hand, "AA ranked succubus."

Kotaro looked at him with an ambivalence of different emotions ranging from shock to amusement and about a hundred other similar emotions. Negi was surprised he was taking it so well. Kotaro had opened his mouth to ask something but quickly decided against it. In the end there were a few moments of eerie silence where he had a glazed look until his gaze ran towards a clock on the wall which stated in digital time 07:40. "Fuck I'm running late. When I get back in the evening I'll tell you all I know about those bastards if you like." Negi saluted him humorously. Kotaro rolled his eyes in response. "If you get hungry check the fridge."

"Thanks. I'll be here since all I have under my cloak is what used to be my clothes."

"But you are…" Negi removed the spell to reveal the cloak and pocked an arm out to show his lack of dress. "Never mind."

"Thanks," Negi said mockingly, "I`m going to get some sleep now. My stuff isn't here until tomorrow at the latest and I only have my uniform to wear."

"Sure just remember I got some food in there and I`ll be back after band practice around nine okay."

The guitar was a giveaway but it was cool his roommate seemed to be in a band. His thoughts were "Is he good?" and "Can I blag some free tickets?" He was not going to be working all the time. His desire to finish his business quickly didn't mean he was only all work.

"Thanks," Negi said. He picked up his smooth uniform and Kotaro volunteered his chair for him to hang it on and took off for the shower room, shutting the door behind him. He then pulled up his bed sheets and climbed in. He unrolled his cloak and shoved it to the floor.

He found sleep almost the moment his head touched the pillow. Who knew he was so sleepy?

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It was a noise, a nearly silent one but a note; a tingling sound like glass that was strangled almost the moment it was created awoke him just in time to save him.

Negi had been in danger most of his life. He had travelled in the heart of jungles filled with dragons, been ambushed by mercenaries, bandits and opportunistic animals. Negi had even fought off his own master when he tried to kill him in his sleep calling it training. The red head personally preferred to call it sadism wrapped around a strange notion of being a teacher but it had an impact. His mind had become accustomed to treating any strange noise as hostile. Any strange feeling in fact triggered this mental reflex and once even his own erratic breathing when he caught the dragon pox kept him up all night for three days.

So it was no surprise when Negi awoke from his slumber just as the crimson sun was retreating for the day, rolled to his left and hit the wooden floor just as several thuds were heard impacting off his mattress. The mage followed the general path of the sound, charged three magical arrows and fired them off into an arc at a slow pace in the direction of the window.

His hands interpreted the vibrations off the floor, ice and darkness flowed together to speak to him and Negi was awarded when he counted six people. A silent spell emitted outwards like radar until they hit the walls detecting the additional presences of many others. He opened his eyes for the first time and grimaced.

In the shadows the curtains bellowed from the broken window. Somehow the light was being sapped from the room except for the redness of the sun that too was being stopped from making itself known inside the room. But Negi could see movement if not features. In fact one was right next to him just under his cloak…

The red head pulled the cloak from under his first foe and snapped up his knee into a partway cartwheel to meet what he presumed it was his enemy's skull in mid air as they fell to the ground and followed through with a movement that turned into a knee strike with his foe's throat. The man's own agility had turned against him as he had tried to right himself before landing and only made his death that bit more sudden as Negi's joint tackled him with his head perfectly horizontal to the ground. The neck snapped, the head bent at an unnatural angle and the red head waited until he heard a death rattle before moving on.

(Greek) "Rastel Maskil Magister, Ice that swallows the light of heaven. Forged from the prison of giants and enemies of the realm." His hand felt numb as a diamond shaped piece of ice was formed on the tip of his palm and spun on the spot, digging its sharp point into his hand and drawing blood. The point of this spell was to infuse his "soul", the so called light inside everyone and made light when such things were normally impossible to replicate outside of light magic. It turned this energy into an actual burst of light by using his blood as a medium between his magic and his flesh as well as acting as an accelerant like someone igniting a can of petrol. "Thou walls of the imprisoned deities give me light that you steal from others that they may never receive that gift again. Ice prism."

The diamond was thrown into the air and released a halo of light that was quickly snuffed out. He barely jumped out of the way from a sword stabbing the floor then another and again one last sword before he got fed up of this problem, formed a sword of execution and pulled a move that would make a break dancer jealous that returned him to his feet and shattered the three swords.

Why had that darkness not abated for a moment? That incantation created light for those with a dark nature even in the heart of a dark dimension where light was devoured to power the vortex. It simply made no sense to him. He wracked his brain for an answer but nothing came to him. He didn't have any information to dissimilate. He had no idea who his enemies were or what they used for magic. All he was aware of was they had swords but the way they cut through the air, the sound they made doing so was nothing he had ever encountered before.

That was the problem with having so many enemies. He could never tell who was trying to kill him when they pulled tricks like this off. There was the chance they had been hired muscle, a third party hired to finish him off for them but that didn't match the pattern of anyone he had a problem with his ability to breathe. For one thing his enemies followed two extremes. Stupidly poor tribes and minor indigenous groups that couldn't afford to build a well never mind hire a killer to air their grievances and the super rich like Cosmo and magical governments that had their own muscle in spades that Negi could never all meet in his lifetime to do their dirty work and they moved in certain ways, fought in similar patterns or were high end mages that would have dispensed with this cloak and dagger approach with their collective power backing them.

Negi Springfield hated mysteries. It was the mysterious ones that could actually get lucky enough to kill him.

Instead of combating the darkness hanging over him like an impenetrable fog for now he focused on his other senses. Some wind magic allowed every sound to travel to his ears more efficiently, every speck of light however little they were captured by manipulated ice particles that refracted it around the room. Finally his personal barrier was expanded and "softened" to act as an early warning system. He had to form some distance between each enemy and he had one way of doing this. That was the very inviting open window.

Negi charged forward at full speed into a hail of swords and the familiar sounds of hand to hand combat. His body moved seemingly at random, his stance not fixed as he descended into a series of blocks, feints and dodging movements. His personal barrier fluctuated occasionally allowing it to briefly solidify where his hands, knees, shins, elbows and even his feet when he was jumping into the air to block his foes swords and what seemed to be some kind of throwing weapon that was a bitch to intercept and deflect. He had the cuts to show for his troubles in several places. Sometimes he sent them flying when they tried to crowd him by releasing a gust of air like a violent localised hurricane but that came with a drawback with all the clothes scattered around the room sent flying and creating false echoes for his early warning system. He was reduced to using it sparingly and besides if the mage used it the way he normally did that turned any enemy dumb enough to even touch it into sashimi the intensity would have torn the floor beneath him into sawdust.

Page 123, titled "damage limitation" subparagraph twenty three which had been circled in red ink had told him that reducing entire buildings to rubble was not permitted in any shape or form unless it was completely _justifiable_. He got the impression that word belonged to scenarios envisioned with the apocalypse.

But he made it in the end. He dived out of the window and rolled from heaven to descend into the earth below. Negi didn't take a moment to admire the beautiful view of the lake that held the island of the library he had tried to steal from that his window had before moving into action. He already had to mindlessly deflect more of those annoying small weapons that with the new light he gained could pick out were star shaped.

(Latin) "Rastel Maskil Magister, Wings of the unholy union of darkness and body, give me the power to fly. Wings of the sky walker!" From under his feet while he was plummeting to the ground head first a magical circle formed. From there the black outline of wings sprouted from his dishevelled body. Soon the details of feathers, black raven like feathers began to form until the magical departed to leave him with a pair of wings.

Negi caught an unlit Victorian style iron streetlight and used it as propulsion to pull himself in the opposite direction of the ground and gain some new momentum before slinging himself back into the air like a rocket. Just before gravity attempted to reclaim him and return him to the ground he had tried to flee from Negi spread his wings fully and with a powerful flap soared off after his enemy.

Negi applied a spell to hide his presence from mundane eyes, not wanting his first day on the job to end with a problem with the mage who had kicked his ass as easily as one would take a morning stroll when he returned to the window for some revenge. Inside the dorm room the darkness was still there but it was like his eyes had gained a filter to see through the darkness to actually pick out shapes.

Seriously who the hell were these people? They moved nothing like anything he had seen before. This was the first time Negi had time to actually stop and analyse the situation now that his heart was beating just below the speed of a cruise missile. He tried to pick apart their styles and look for some clues

"_Is it some kind of magical illusion?"_ Negi thought as he came in to hover across the room. His enemies were still mulling along inside as if they were looking for something and like there was no darkness inside. _"Or perhaps some sort of magical powder?"_ He had heard of alchemy powders that if you took a pill an hour or so before you released the powder to obscure an enemy's view on a mental scale you could still see quite well around the area affected.

Suddenly he saw his enemies still like they had been petrified and they all turned to look outside at him. In sync they pulled their arms back to their right shoulders, their left too went to their mid sections to make things worse and soon they were making throwing motions that soon gave him that damn noise from those small throwing weapons that were about to come right at him. He turned round one hundred and eighty degrees hastily, pouring energy into his barrier from behind and took off away from those bastards but a few had gotten through with three glancing blows at his limbs and one embedding itself into his shoulder before he could redistribute his energy completely.

Negi dived in surprise at the sudden intense pain and saw his barrier skim off the tarmac and startling a few normal people who couldn`t see him before he righted himself and landed feet first on the roadway. The teen yanked the metallic object from his shoulder through his ruined shirt and shivered from the cool air that seeped into the wound as he took a moment to analyse it.

It was small, shaped like a star and sharp. Oh yeah it was sharp. He pricked his finger turning it around to look for markings or anything to tell him who the hell they were.

His body reacted to the next attack before his mind processed it was in peril. He flapped his wings, kicking up rubbish and dust on the street up to blind his foes, formed six magical arrows of ice that made a quick orbit around his form to confuse his attackers before shooting off and missing. The pavement was torn up making Negi want to groan at breaking the rules on property damage.

They were seven of them around him in a perfect circle. They were wearing these full body suits, black with red trim that matched with some kind of scarlet fishnets on their forearms and thighs. They had hoods on their heads, red bandana style coverings over their faces and carried strange single edged swords over their shoulders. Personally Negi thought they looked like prairie roaming bandits he had once caught unawares while asleep once when his water supply ran out and he needed to "borrow" some of theirs.

Negi saw them in their resumed circle formation one minute and after blinking they were suddenly gone. His reaction was to fly and six feet up in the air, the space he had been occupying on the floor was occupied by sword edges. He retaliated by landing on top of the swords, pushing them into the ground and blasting the surrounding space with an incanted wind spell.

Negi missed. He found this out by the way his body had to contort painfully to block the swords that tried to impale him. He got lucky, catching one of them by the blade edge with one shielded hand and used it as a lever to throw him into a shop door hard with several darkness magical arrows to take him out. His incanted sword of execution caught another of their swords, this time meeting some resistance from some kind of glowing energy they had on the metal before his fist infused with a single wind arrow captured the swordsman on one spot long enough for a final finishing high kick to the chin with the double purpose of avoiding another sword from someone thinking they could catch him from behind.

His sword of execution spilled crimson when he was landing on his ambusher with a vertical blow into their chest and a shukuchi left the mage in a favourable position behind another opponent so he could chop the back of his neck so they would fall like a puppet with his strings cut.

Negi spotted another opening to flee and took off; releasing an obvious flare of red energy into the sky that everyone could see to spook the magi into taking notice if they already had no clue to what was going on with all the magic he had been slinging back into the rapidly darkening sky and away. Meanwhile all he had was those damage limitation rules in his head. The embattled mage had torn up that pavement, shattered and his new dorm room's window and the teen didn`t believe for one moment he would get off scot free for causing either no matter if he did it indirectly. His boss man could read his mind after all.

The winged mage soared into the sky, making barrel rolls and turns to disguise his intentions and to look for opposition in the various dark alleys or other dark places of this city. Mahora at night was looking like one giant maze as he had nowhere to run to and his maps had only been on Library Island. He had barely read the maps of Mahora city since it was quite a bit of information for him to assimilate on a train ride. So he was stuck circling the skies like a vulture only he was the one the enemy were picking up scraps from if he made an error they would see to exploit.

Something brushed against his ear silently, drawing blood. He hissed, surprised at sensing nothing at all and slashed out angrily with a renewed sword of execution. It tore through something that his other hand caught and felt between his thumb and finger.

"Paper?" Negi said out loud to himself almost in disbelief. He examined it and indeed it was some kind of pure white paper. He had smudged some writing on it with his fingers that dried instantly on his skin and Negi couldn't get it to come off when he tried to rub it off with his ring finger. This is what got past his senses? Anything animated by the forces of magic gave off a magical trail no matter how small it was. A trickle of energy still left a signature for him to anticipate or to use as a means to judge how powerful his foe was.

His danger senses advised him to find a place less exposed from all sides and so Negi nosedived into the streets below. The corners of his eyes caught movement, more silent and undetectable strands for lack of a better word of this paper that were trying to surround him like a pack of ravenous snakes. The red head lashed out with his sword again, folded his wings in, took a breath in and held it before unfolding them to move nearly at supersonic speed. Negi moved like this, feeling the chill for a moment until Negi was nearly a quarter ways through town until he slowed down, let the breath he was holding out and collect his wits enough to see his battlefield.

It was in a large amount of free space. The street lights had now switched on to show off a basketball court and other P.E related areas set aside for their activities. The building in the centre was old but elegant and layered like a cake with four floors. Various temporary buildings were erected alongside it and he had just spotted the white perimeter wall that went right around the compound making sure that anyone innocent would not be inside. The building roof was flat like his dormitory but not fenced off but it did have one odd feature where one side was built up higher than the other three sides that pocked out with some kind of architectural monument involving a statue of some old guy in a robe that he could use to stop ambushes and help control the amount of damage he caused.

Negi landed, using his wings to control his descent to earth. He landed with a clapping sound on the square slab floor one foot followed by another while dispelling his wings under another magical circle to be greeted by more of those paper strands coming right at him.

He didn't react in time. Two strands wrapped around each of his arms while a third with a head shaped like a mace punched him like a professional boxer right in his gut. He expelled all the air in his lungs as his head crashed into the base of the statue behind him, stealing away his ability to speak out his spells. It got off two more blows before he centralised his magical barrier into a tiny circle that effortlessly fought off the attack. The controller failed to see at first the futilely of his attacks until Negi gained enough magical energy to move both of his arms to their opposite sides and tear the paper holding each arm apart. He released the barrier keeping the paper trying to pound his stomach in, caught the strand and yanked. And when he yanked he was really pulling the paper and the person operating it towards him with the pulling power of an 18 wheeler holding a full load.

Something came careering towards him and his clothesline caught them in the neck. Negi pried him into a sleeper hold, snapped the thick neck viciously even if they seemed to have some kind of neck brace on and let go of them like the person was nothing but refuse.

Upon examination his enemy or at least this type was literally wrapped head to toe in paper, hiding all features except for some eye, ear and breathing holes. The bulging eyes told him the man had not died in agony in fact he only looked blank, vacant even like he had been in a daydream when he died. The paper around the body was literally six to seven inches thick and seemingly self replicating as the damaged strands even now were repairing themselves.

Eager to learn more about this curiously armed adversary Negi drew a spark of energy, an imperfect sword of execution in a miniature version that resembled the flame of a blow torch and started trying to cut through the face mask but the light puttered out before his power could touch it. He expanded the blade to encompass his entire finger and tried again. Each time he failed, he lengthened the blade until it was nearly the size of what it was supposed to be before he gave up or rather had gotten to the point that he did not care anymore. He experimented and slashed one of the regenerated strands. It snapped easily enough but yet again it slowly started repairing itself.

So the teenager knew two things. These paper guys could avoid magical senses. They had completely caught him off guard and it worked well to spook him. It was hard to get the drop on Negi Springfield. He was a battle hardened old hand at fighting after all. The other fact was the apparent relationship between the magical immunity between the body and the strands. They seem to be distance related and the further away meant the more power the spell required to have any effect. Still he had no fucking clue who exactly these guys were meant to be.

And besides where the hell were his guys? The people that were meant to look after this place? Were the city defenders all on a lunch break or something? He was fighting alone against mysterious dark clad guys who could move at high speed wielding razor edged swords, pointy throwing stars and that wasn't the worse of it with people made of paper that were literally undetectable to any conventional magical sense he was trained to utilise.

So Negi needed to develop a defence of sorts. He needed something to give himself some range, a larger circle of space where he could be given proper warning for him to act since his barrier was needed more to keep him alive. From within himself he gathered some magical energy. On his flesh like skin was peeling away, strange spiral markings formed on every naked part of his flesh that was exposed in his ruined attire.

"Lancea Mercurium," he murmured, placing his palms together. The mage was interrupted midway in his summoning though when he heard a single nearly silent whistle and his right hand attempted to catch and was subsequently pierced through the palm by something moving fast enough that he did not have the time to restrain the object with his personal shield. He wrapped what he identified as more of this bloody paper around his bloody wrist and tore it off with his hand before its inane resistance could kick in. Right in front of him what seemed limitless in number, extra thin strands of paper almost filament sized zoomed after him. He shot off a barrage of magical arrows; two at a time together for nearly ten bombardments that may as well have been hot air as they were effortlessly dispelled by the seemingly invincible wraps of paper.

Negi changed tactics and shundo`d ahead just as the paper strands shot past him and embedded themselves into the statue thing behind him. He didn't see what happened afterwards but something like a crunching noise swiftly followed by the entire side of the roof collapsed from the weight of the statue and the weakened roof below him and it fell down, crashing with a nearly deafening sound onto the staircase below him that hurt in more ways than one.

"How the hell am I going to talk my way out of this one?" Negi snapped, thinking of the explanation he would need about the building specifically all the likely structural damage.

But there was some good news well kind of. His enemies were now in view. All he had to do was follow the paper into the skyline where they were trying to hide in the darkness between streetlights. There were ten of them, all the same as the guy he felled earlier. They were flying on what resembled bumblebee wings and the paper strands expelled were not the only ones moving around. At the same time another large number of paper attacks, innumerable for Negi to estimate but thicker, and their tips shaped like bullet heads were out for blood while the spent extra thin filaments that had ruined a perfectly good building were retreating and attempting to eviscerate him as they were recalled.

Making a split decision, figuring the building was already a lost cause and he couldn't get into any more trouble than he already could possibly be he channelled a buzz saw style of a wind field tightly around him by splitting his personal barrier in two and moving them in opposite directions at high speed. His improvised paper shredder shredded with some resistance the attacking pieces of paper to nothing as well as some of the floor below him.

The destroyed strands including the thin filaments around him emitted an aura in a horrible shade of malevolent red and exploded. Negi so caught off guard by the sudden change in their behaviour he was thrown to the floor and felt his elbow explode in pain. The same explosion triggered his anger and he rashly lashed out.

(Greek) "Rastel Maskil Magister, Dark spirits of shadow and hunger, shape around me and heed my commands, strike forth and bring death to my foe. Invocation of the wraiths of the night, thirteen wraiths arise!"

Thirteen ghostly wraiths of darkness swarmed around him and took off after his enemies. When they got into range, the teen's mysterious foes formed an aerial diamond formation and extracted a great amount of their paper from their bodies like a snake shedding its skin. The paper shards like they were magnetically attracted to each other joined together into hexagon pieces to make a kite shaped shield that his enemy took shelter behind to let his powerful spell be swatted away. The damaged sections took charge of the following reformation as the shield became a giant spear after it was done and lumbered off after him with its creators hiding behind it like they were laying siege to a castle.

It was so slow. Why were they wasting their time with this slow attack when their strands had been nearly cutting him into fine pieces? He got his answer when two hands grabbed both of his own and something was blown into his face just as he caught a glimpse of those damn swordsmen who had ambushed him in his room.

Instantly his eyes were burning, watering and his instincts moved to shield his body as best as he could. The violent surge in his magical energy made his captors make their first noise as they pulled away in pain and Negi felt his skin slightly sizzle. (Greek) "Rastel, Maskil, Magister, Swords of eternal darkness, heed my command. Emerge and draw your token of flesh and blood. I command my exchange of my enemy's corpses be met! Blades of the damned!" While rubbing his eyes, washing ice particles on his face to clear up his vision, his spell manifested in the form of several purple swords materialising in mid air and shot off in the general direction of the paper packing fools while he used a shukuchi to move behind where he remembered where one foe was and kicked out into the path of the guy in front of him. He scored wide, his eyes were still burning but he could see and he spotted the bastard who had burned his eyes. Untold rage made him nearly make a very dumb mistake. He gathered power into his newly exposed markings but was stopped suddenly by an angry surge of energy not his own.

"_What the hell are you doing?"_ Gaia screeched at him weakly.

"_I need magic erebea,"_ Negi called back, pulling off a series of shundo techniques to dodge tiny blades of paper shaped like bullets that stuck halfway through the floor beneath him. _"Bad guys are annoying me and I have to watch what I blow up."_

"_Not with my soul you aren__'__t," _Gaia snapped, her tiredness was showing in her tone. She clearly had not totally recovered from the dean`s attack._ "My contract page 11 clearly states you can__'__t use my blood, flesh or energy to increase your power."_

"_Can__'__t you pop out and help me so I can?"_

"_Unless you want me to sit down and distract you while you are fighting I__'__m not much use to you."_

Negi sighed and muttered his apologises. He had forgotten why he had summoned the markings in the first place and she was right. The magical contract they had negotiated clearly stated that he couldn't use soul damaging magic while Gaia was inside and this eroded it as he used it.

"_Sorry,"_ Negi said, wishing they were not symbiotically linked sometimes. _"Go back to sleep."_

"_Don't mind if I do,"_ Gaia murmured then went silent.

It was lucky for some people to just sit out the fights to the death when they wanted to. He still had to fight to the finish and keep his surroundings intact. Time for plan B whatever the hell it was. (Latin) "Rastel Maskil Magister," Negi snarled, "Howling winds of the harshest lands mingle with the darkness with which you share affinity, darkness and restless tornado envelop and embrace me. The shield of the dark ones!"

A violent dark coloured tornado swallowed him just as an endless stream of paper shot out from above. They bounced off the barrier and slapped the barrier endlessly in the attempt to break through while some were fighting off the levitating purple swords he had cast earlier that kept them pinned in the one spot. The paper bullets met the same fate but were reduced to nothing on contact.

He was safe for now. The tip of the shield closed above him and for about a minute he would be protected. Negi wasted no time in collecting himself, drawing some energy into himself and started what had been interrupted before. "Lancea Mercurium," he muttered holding his palms together. From there rivulets of what looked like silver came out of the markings he had summoned before. It moved like water in zero gravity and in front of him created what looked like a silver lance like its name, the quicksilver lance. Its shaft was shaped like a spiral with a long thick blade at the tip. It had two serrated protrusions on one side while on the other it was smooth and shaped like a shark's fin.

This was a mysterious weapon. He had picked it up somewhere but he had forgotten where. The magic it was bound to, how it lived within him when inactive and the reason it was in his possession entirely was a mystery attributed to the weapon itself. Negi only knew its name because the teen required invoking its true name in summoning it.

Anyway he shifted his weight back onto his rear foot, getting ready to throw it. Negi had to adjust his grip when his bleeding palm made it slippery to hold. He shuffled his feet back, channelled energy into the lance that looked more like a halberd, made a small mock charge and chucked it forward. It went through the shield he erected like nothing, gained speed as it flew up into the sky and went through one of the paper men even when he tried to protect himself with a smaller version of the kite shield from before. The foe fell to the ground below with a thud while the swords that had been harassing that enemy levitated after some new targets.

Negi sent out a thought and the weapon in its liquid form shot back in his direction, penetrating his shield again as it sought to reform itself. When it was restored Negi stabbed it at one of the swordsmen next to him and caught him in the side on the side with the protrusions, dragging out the blade as harshly as Negi could and as deeply as possible. As his foe fell Negi took aim again at his aerial attackers and fired his lance at them again.

This time they got out of the way but they were scattered, distracted further by the purple swords hassling them and not ready for the mid air shundo he pulled the second his wind shield collapsed. He had followed the path of his lance and used it as a lever to pull another mid air shundo that allowed both of his hands, now gleaming each with the fully powered form of the sword of execution to slice and dice two of his enemies. He used one of the plummeting corpses as another platform and stabbed another in the chest when he landed on its back. As he came back in to land he recalled his lance and dispelled the purple magical swords keeping them in one place to conserve energy.

Only he had a lot of those damn swordsmen waiting for him when he landed that had come from literally nowhere and he sensed nothing and that was starting to piss him off. He entered stance with the lance and with the other hand provoked them into making a move.

Only Negi never got a chance to fight them. A black blur landed next to him and the crack of gunfire swiftly followed. A whooshing sound similar to those throwing stars only on a far greater scale crashed down in front of him like a barricade while a swarm of pink something or other like flower petals surrounded his swordsmen enemies and the crashing of a metal weapon later and those men were on the ground seemingly dead or unconscious. Several of those men were either stabbed, shot or had mysterious internal wounds that no sign of being hurt as their clothes were pristine.

The large shuriken gained an owner as something or someone tall zoomed in front of him, pulled the giant weapon out of the ground and threw it at the incoming strands of paper or rather right through the gaps they made. It was stopped in the end but the men behind the paper attacks were moving away and taking defensive positions as more precise gun shots were fired at them. They spat out paper objects that looked like swans that exploded to cover their escape. Some of the swordsmen had been playing dead saw as they saw the momentary distraction the little firework show created as a cue and threw some smoke like the stuff in the dormitory room and they vanished.

"Oh no you fucking don't," Kotaro`s voice growled. He punched his fist out and one of the so called dead people who weren`t quick enough to run off with his friends lurched and coughed out blood as they died.

"How the fuck did you do that?" Negi said, his heart was racing like hell and he was cold since his clothes were nearly nonexistent. His wounds were starting to ache and damn he had more of them than he even knew. The shoulder and wrist wounds were especially throbbing.

"It`s called Kirātatchi, the killing touch," Kotaro said, sounding very proud of himself. "I created it." He was holding one of those damn swords the swordsmen had been trying to use on him and dressed in black leather from head to toe. His trench coat was flapping in the wind.

"It just makes people explode?" Negi asked curiously, trying to sound like he was joking. That move was fucking scary and he hoped Kotaro was the type to explain his moves to his "allies".

"It's a bit harder than that," Kotaro said slyly, "Something to do with channelling my chi into another person's body and using it to…"

Negi never gave him a chance to finish. He was leaning on his lance without even realising it until he lurched for a moment and the big hanyo caught him.

"Is he alright?" an extremely tall girl asked as she zoomed from a shundo next to him to hold his other arm. She was dressed in some jeans and t-shirt and her hair was short and shaggy except for a single almost pole like ponytail that looked like it could trip her up.

"If it is Negi Springfield he will be fine Kaede-san," a very familiar voice said in monotone. Negi inwardly shivered. It would explain the gunplay anyway. "He is very resilient in desperate situations."

"Hello Mana-chan," Negi greeted, waving his hand weakly behind him. His lance turned into mercury and returned to his magic erebea markings. "Still got issues?" Negi winced when he heard the metal click of a loaded gun. Damn she still didn't have a sense of humour.

"Are there anymore Set-chan?" Kotaro asked. "Especially check for any more of those origami ghosts."

A young girl walked up to the edge of the debris field or what used to be the statue on the roof. She was short, slender and wore her smooth black hair in a single long ponytail. She was dressed in sneakers, short black skirt and red blouse. She was holding an extremely long sword with a wooden hilt and scabbard. She had this deceptively delicate look to her as she looked almost daintily at the skyline of Mahora city.

"There is nothing at all Ko-chan," Set-chan declared, "Nothing as usual. The origami ghosts are like ghosts that slip away into the night with no trace."

"It will be too late to try and dye them again with the barrier marking system." Mana was business as usual. She was always professional. Heck Negi betted that Mana had already forgotten the last time they met in Megalosembria on opposing sides and he ended that encounter by burying her under two tons of magical exploding stones. Negi only knew she survived when he read about her hospitalisation with a heavy guard until they proved it was him that caused the central government building to collapse. That reminded him he owed Senator Ricardo for bailing him out of that. "I suggest we try and use the hawk UAV near here to track them."

"It won't be any good," the teenage girl holding him up stated resignedly, "Asuna-chan tried that the last time they tried to kidnap Konoka ojou-sama and Takahata-sensei tried the time before that. The shadow men and origami ghosts are gone."

Shadow men? Origami ghosts? These guys were called such lame names? Did someone forget where they put the thesaurus when coming up with them? Hell Negi remembered origami was supposed to be some art involving folding paper into cranes or other shapes. He thought it funny that they had employed it as some kind of super weapon. He displayed this amusement quite loudly.

"Are you alright?" Kaede as she was so named asked.

"Just fucking dandy," he laughed back, hissing as the movement aggravated his injuries.

"We had better take Negi-san to the sickbay," Mana suggested, "Then we can ask him why he is here. I do not think the dean would employ a man of his reputation."

"Couldn't you just say the man is slime like the rest of humanity?" Negi mocked, "Besides Kotaro is my roommate. I`m looking for those Seijou bastards you couldn't root out and that surprises me," Negi added, ending with a mocking, "So very disappointed too for a woman that trailed me across an entire city with nothing but two handguns, four clips and some teleportation talismans for twelve hours to fail at locating a bunch of backwater hicks."

"I am performing another task Negi-san," Mana supplied, "Everyone here plus another is part of a covert observation team and were only rerouted here because the on call leader is at the other side of town supervising the Library island site."

"That was my fault," Negi said, "Kotaro told me about the text he got. I guess you must be running low on them or something." Negi heard a gun click and tensed. "Hey let's be reasonable here."

"Hey, hey," Kotaro called out, trying to calm everyone down, "Minamoto-sensei said he was cool when he was brought to my dorm room. I sniffed her too. She was no imposter and I even checked the official roster for the independent contractors at headquarters. He is here officially as penance for an attempt to break into the hollow of Library Island."

"Why is he here?" Set-chan or whatever her real name was said.

"To take down Seijou in Mahora city and root them out," Negi said, "I guess they already have connections in the central computer network if they found me out already."

"Actually they sent the boss man a written message to his desk about ten minutes before my room was attacked promising to kill the black wolf of Kyoto or me," Kotaro said sheepishly. "If you want to be technical about it."

"But aren't you descended from a dog demon?" Negi joked weakly, feeling the stiffening of his anchor`s shoulders for a moment before he took it for the joke it was supposed to be and laughed a single condescending note of laughter.

"I never chose the name."

"You would probably have added invincible in front of it," the swordswoman deadpanned, walking over to Negi and bowed. "Sakurazaki Setsuna." The woman holding his other shoulder offered her own as gently as possibly.

"Nagase Kaede," she introduced, "Officially an envoy between the Koga clan and shinmei-ryu shinobi branch."

"And we guessed already that you know Tatsumiya-san?" Kotaro said tilting his head so Negi could see where Mana was. "Are you the only one who can call her Mana-chan?"

"The only one with the balls big enough to try it and live," Negi replied wittily. He was aching and as well as a tired Negi, a wounded Negi also liked to play so he could distract himself from his injuries. They were not bad but he was woozy like he was intoxicated. Perhaps the swords and the projectiles these so called Shadow men used were poisoned. It didn't matter in the end. As long as it wasn`t from one of those gigantic venomous snakes in the Ariadne plains it would only take a few minutes with medical magic before he would be right as rain.

"We had better be moving," Setsuna requested, "I don't think we should hang around here for the emergency services."

"At least on the bright side," Kotaro said, grabbing his arms as if to tell Kaede he would take Negi to the sick bay, "We don't have school tomorrow and I can practice with my band."

"Why is that?" Negi asked innocently.

Kotaro made the mouth motions to answer but Mana cut in with her ever present monotone.

"Because your battle just destroyed one side of it and probably destabilised the rest of the building at the same time."

Of all the battlefields he had to pick. This streak of bad luck was really starting to cramp his style. "I am never going to be able to explain this one," Negi said to himself, beseeching the forces that governed the world that wanted him to be confronted by the dean for the second time in two days. "Can my day get any worse?"

"Hello Negi," greeted a newcomer, a person Negi knew so very well for all the wrong reasons. "Long time no see."

"I had to say something didn't I?" Negi moaned before greeting in return, a meeting he had hoped would have been later on in the week, "Hello Takamichi."

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A/N The chapter is complete and the first fight has arrived. Now we get to the consequences of this battle… He he he!


	4. The Start Of His Mahora Days

"Neo Negima"

"Dancing On The Void"

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 4: The Start Of His Mahora Days (Nearly)

Disclaimer: If I freaking owned Negima I would also have created Love Hina and if that were the case Mutsumi would have been with Keitaro. I may be a masochist but come on! At least Mutsumi was gorgeous!

**Member of "Otaku Town"**

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In the darkness water in the form of droplets echoed like a gong as it dripped onto the cold hard, malformed stone floor he was sitting on holding onto his knees and rocking himself. He was cold, disorientated and each time a muffled banging noise like that from an explosion made him nearly jump off his feet, encourage the beast known as his fear and fed his sense of inevitably towards the idea of dying.

His heart was like a revving engine that was gunned over and over with each time getting louder each time the booms occurred as it pounded into his ears, his skin unconsciously shivered as tiny droplets of ice cold moisture struck the exposed parts of his flesh. His body convulsed, shivered and shook so much his control over his bladder stepped ever closer towards being emptied out of fear for his life.

But the darkness was the worst. He could not even see the short black shorts he wore or the bright orange t-shirt was wearing. His head of red hair couldn't shield him from the water that with the veil of utter black made it impossible to anticipate in the slightest.

The boy had been here for hours even if it felt more like a decade. This cellar, this horrible dank prison was a natural underground cave protected by multi dimensional shielding scratched on with flint and special paint only a ward weaver, an artisan could bring to life. Normally these beautiful weavings of the energies that this world leaked naturally like a human would perspire were made to keep things such as noise, pestilence or indeed water like the moisture leaking into the large cavern right now from seeping through the bedrock and contaminating the various crates containing beer and other alcoholic beverages. These barriers however had been crudely altered down to their fundamental function as something meant to shelter in the last moment just before the boy's beloved uncle picked up his staff he had inherited from his uncle, a battered old relic of a foci and charged off to help fight the mystery enemy that was causing the bed rock to tremor above him.

The battle of the timber valley, a magical valley in Wales and specifically the land where the village Negi Springfield had grown up in was raging outside in the plain and inside the settlement. The one sided massacre by a horde of conjured demons against a village of magi ill prepared for such an onslaught was raging topside. Things were happening out there he would only see the aftermath of after crawling out of a thin wind eroded hole from before the installation of the barrier when the noises would stop. The rumblings of the caved in wall would before the end of hostilities cause the hidden stalagmites of which one used to balance a damaged crate of Mundus Vetes wine because of its irregular height compared to the rest to crumble like a house of cards on top of him, burying him under a great mass of solid stone for three hours until he dug himself free with his bare blood soaked hands. Combined it made him either hesitant or unable to vacate for four solid hours where he found nothing but ruin and people made of stone that put Michelangelo's David to shame.

But now he had to wait here in this timeframe lost in fear once more, again powerless and woefully uninformed to what his people and their fate was to be. Negi as a small boy barely lived had only his imagination to play tricks on him, his rebelling soul imagining the catastrophe that might be manifesting above and body threatening to soil him with an overwhelming searing desire to see his beloved older sister Nekane who had ran to the front lines despite her weakened abilities in combat. For god sake her specialty was alchemy based chemistry to be specific artificial plant food. She had no place in a battlefield.

Still here in his uncle's underground storeroom he had no idea of the disaster currently underway or the blunders that would leave his whole childhood in flames like the distress communication spells to the Welsh National Guard that would take nearly half an hour to be received after getting to their destination as the on call guard was found to be taking a smoke break instead of being at his station meditating in a communication circle to wait for messages to copy down.

Again that wasn't the only mistake the Welsh National Guard made from their lack of foresight or budget. They had cut the manual observation of the antiquated anti demon shields around the village to make way for an automatic observation post that on the night in question had been getting its maintenance and henceforth not activated, leaving the mistake made by the fact the backup supposed to be listening in for messages of distress that much more horrifying to believe.

These many errors and the way Negi had to wait here had fuelled his entire life, his anger, his drives to see his goals a reality and most importantly of all his distrust of any official magical body. It had stolen the majority of the comradely attitude for years between Shishou and student in the magical world as he trained to the brink of death at times. But most importantly of all when he figured out roughly who had ordered this destruction the red headed male allowed the poison of hatred to bubble in his breast in regards to his own father for dragging his enemies to his village even beyond the grave.

The vision in front of him made three consecutive bangs as he remembered just before the uneven floor for the first time shook and cracked violently as he well he presumed anyway, the lining of dimensional shielding keeping him safe began to fail as a critical keystone was turned to pebbles by an earth movement like a tremor presumably from a high wield energy based impact. All around him in a few moments a stalagmite was destined to crush him nearly to death only for him to escape the jaws of death with a few broken ribs.

Suddenly that darkness became light; the cold water replaced by the warmth of something fuzzy over his skin. Oh and there was a wet feeling, something hot and fleshy that was pressed down upon him from somewhere and it felt very, very comfortable? It also served to bring the angst laden recollection to an abrupt halt.

Soon and sooner than he had liked that wet, sensual, loin stirring sensation was gone and a giggle replaced it as if the owner of that cute laugh could read his thoughts or sense his feelings about being parted from them.

Negi didn't deny his urge to groan in embarrassment. He had been dreaming about that again… And his faithful minion had as usual pulled him out of his nightmare and provided him with something more pleasurable to focus on.

What a good minion she was. He heard a giggle and assumed she had read the sarcasm going through his sleepy mind.

His eyes fluttered open to the sight of a very familiar female with fiery red hair, green almost glowing eyes telling him she was using her damn powers on him as she leaned over him like a lover greeting her mate after a good night's sleep. Above her was an unfamiliar ceiling, grey with a simple humming ventilation panel. It was a small room, more like a cell and for a second he had the sudden fear that his attack on Library Island and his day in his new dorm room had all been a dream and he was actually incarcerated in a holding cell in Mahora city. The burgeoning sense of panic threatened to murmur loudly until Negi remembered the events of last night that led him into what they claimed was a hospital bed.

Gaia just looked at him like a cat would to a mouse. She had the advantage at times like this and took advantage when she could. While waking up or going to sleep Negi was at his weakest to her powers of compulsion so for now until his mental fortifications were jostled to react he just succumbed to her powers of suggestion and just blatantly stared at his demonic partner.

Gaia in her human form was captivating. Apart from her gorgeous face she had the perfect hour glass figure supermodels couldn't compare to match including her long, slender and luscious legs that accentuated her great bust that was neither too small nor too big. She was the epitome of the proverbial goddess even in her choice of clothing that was no more than a shred of fabric to cover up her assets and maintain her modesty. An old legend no demon would ever offer an opinion to collaborate on stated that each time they took a new master their forms especially those of the succubus changed and fixed themselves minus the clothing of course to suit their new contractor's personal preferences.

Negi's personal beliefs refused to acknowledge that legend. Admitting that for whatever reason even if he had evidence to back it up in earshot of the succubus would only ever give her more power over him. Her contract was already far too lenient as it was and she had drove a hard bargain like for example it had taken four hours to talk her out of wanting a clause that guaranteed her days off from duty. She was most unusual with demonic behaviour that didn't follow the typical aristocratic manner summoned and contracted demons usually obeyed like an unofficial code of etiquette they took great delight in embodying as if to remind their masters and contractors how pathetic in comparison they were to them. Her payment for the services was deferred for at least twenty years when usually it was upfront to avoid the impossible concept of cheating a demon out of their payment and Gaia most intriguingly of all refused to return to the realm of her existence preferring instead to live out her days when she wasn't gallivanting around causing havoc within his body when almost all demons would implicitly tell you that spending more than a second longer than they had to on this side of the dimensional divide was for them truly hell. Oh the irony.

"Good morning master," Gaia greeted, "How are you?" Her dainty hand with skin the colour of milk with perfect pink fingernails caressed his long messy hair that needed to find a shower at some point. "Are your wounds healed?" She helped him sit up with a hidden strength that did not match her choice of body type and Negi felt a twinge of pain but it wasn't majorly painful, more uncomfortable like you would feel if a limb was asleep. His naked torso rippling with muscle had the usual scars but his healer had been skilled. The doctor had applied his energies in the right places and in ways beyond Negi's current abilities. His battlefield healing was pastes and potions than subtle regeneration of the flesh.

"I've seen better days," Negi understated, "You?"

"I have survived the trauma of being speared between realms yes," Gaia replied sarcastically, stroking his hair some more. She was very touchy feely. Negi had read this was in their nature as creatures that elicited emotional responses to use to feed from.

"Good to hear that," Negi replied brightly, his heart on the other hand felt a little heavy. The woman caressed his face for a moment reading his emotions, maybe even gently surgically eroding the parts that were feeling upset at getting her hurt before returning to his hair.

"So you got yourself stuck here then," Gaia said, waving her free hand around in the tiny room. She was the master of changing the subject and keeping it that way. "I leave you alone for a day and you end up working for the guy we were trying to steal from and then get into a fight with a new enemy and then you dare to wake me up before I have had my beauty sleep in the middle of said battle." She laughed a dainty sound that failed to reach her seductive eyes that peered deep into his soul. "What ever will I do with you master?"

The mage who was her master just shrugged and tried to look disarming but the wink he shot her told a different story. "Maybe by helping me out so I can get this damn job done swiftly?"

"Not too swiftly I hope. I quite like the feel of this place. The buzz of the underground shields radiating, the feel of untouched earth from the usually magically saturated land of Mundus Magicus hell I even like the boring, mundane feelings of the magi that live here." She licked her lips. "So tasty and," she exaggerated wiping her mouth as if she had excess drool, "So open for me to sample."

Negi offered her a lopsided grin and leant up, exposing his naked torso completely. He was still in the rags from last night where Takamichi had dropped him off in this room minus the shirt. The magic erebea markings had not been hidden yet due to the complexity of the glamour he used to obscure them.

"Maybe we can get that coffee while we do?" Negi smirked, "And the biscuits."

"Your doctor will not like you leaving master," Gaia teased, trailing a finger down his arm slowly. She had done this so many times Negi barely noticed her attempt to make him uncomfortable. "But I like your idea. I mean you made a lady all sore from all that exercise you had me do and nothing to show for it."

Negi rolled his eyes at the innuendo. His eyebrows were probably the strongest muscles in his body from all the daily practice. "You don't think I hurt all over from all those metal throwing weapons last night?"

She caressed his cheek, smiling an angelic smile despite the irony of that description then pinched his cheek hard with her nails breaking the skin. Just after she let go delicately, Negi grimaced as that look morphed into her serious expression.

"I saw that battle," indicating her ability to read every single memory, feeling and emotion he had with no means of blocking her powers. It got annoying as he had to soon abandon any concept of privacy not so long after he agreed to their deal. "And I saved you from violating our contract," Gaia said smugly mouthing each word one by one while slapping his sore cheek slightly each time like she was telling a bad pet to behave. If she didn't have the contract amendment promising she could voice any problems without repercussions he could have muttered a single phrase and she would have been on the ground screaming in agony. "A little poison will not harm you."

"So I was poisoned," Negi muttered, remembering his thoughts at the end of the battle last night, "You sure about that?"

Gaia smirked satisfactorily while she very much so ladylike in her movements rose to her feet and glided across the empty room and tapped on a section of the wall. An outline of a square of light appeared briefly before a hissing sound followed swiftly by a panel depressing and sliding to the side revealed an alcove containing a clipboard. She took out the pad of official looking paper, opened up to a page and showed him his diagnosis from his physician.

As he was a routine resident of hospitals, shaman tents or any other place where one had their bodies sewn back together the mage had become somewhat of an old hand at understanding his medical lingo. He saw the usual shit. There was his shoulder wound, the expected cuts, scrapes and oh he had broken his wrists for the first time for a while but never noticed it in the heat of battle. What stuck out made him talk out loud and summarise the jargon. "Alchemy based compound poisoning. Suspected to be the green dust," Negi murmured. That brought back some memories. Green dust in its dust like state was harmless but by adding simple tap water to it and exposing it to a blade conducting energy it became a slow acting poison that paralysed a person. It travelled up to the brain, killing all the nerves on the way until it caused an aneurysm and then obviously death. The only problem was Negi was sure that only one group used it as a weapon as the actual manufacturing process of the powder was unknown but who was it that made this stuff again?

"_Cosmo Entelecheia uses this poison master,"_ Gaia answered on the behalf of his memory, showing she had been reading his thought processes again. That damn telepathy was also a stipulation in her contract but why was she using it instead of talking to him? She put away the file into its space and pointed upwards with a tilt of her pretty head. Negi looked up to see a tiny lens that caught the light.

He was being spied on. How delightfully_ predictable _of them and how bloody obvious it was too that they would have some sort of spy looking in on what they were doing.

"_Thanks for the heads up,"_ Negi mentally returned. He filed away his clue regarding Cosmo Entelecheia being in contact for certain with this Seijou group and those shadow men. "So," Negi drawled, "Any chance of getting me some clothes so we can get that coffee?" The sudden changes to speech made the succubus jump onto the bed next to him and ruffle his hair.

"They didn't bring anything for you," she crooned into his ear, "But the way your lady doctor was looking at you I think she won't be quick in finding any clothes."

"It seems all my working out has paid off," Negi japed, flexing his arm. "But let's gets moving so we can find someone who can lend me some clothes."

Gaia helped him to his feet the moment he offered his arm for her to hold onto. His bare feet felt cold on the tiled floor making him wince as he stretched out his muscles. Negi nearly tumbled when the mage managed to become fully upright but Gaia was quick to wrap her arms around him to steady him. A warm trickling sensation entered his mind, an odd mixture of confidence and self belief.

"A little pick me up I saved for you," she joked. Her long nails retracted, trailing down his chest as they did. With the right mindset given to him Negi took the time to gather some magical energy and reform the glamour hiding his markings. There would be questions about their meaning already and it wouldn't help him if he advertised their existence.

"I am much obliged Gaia," Negi thanked, wrapping his arm around his servant's shoulder. "Hold me while I get these muscles awake."

The demon effortlessly held onto his waist while he warmed his body up. It was like some kind of awkward dance where he kicked his feet into the air so he could touch his toes and stretched out his arms until his weary body woke up. It took a few minutes but with a reassuring nod Gaia let him go assured he wasn't about to fall on the floor like a drunken lout.

"The antidote for the green dust must be finished going through your system," Gaia declared, rubbing some imaginary lint from his naked shoulders. She was really, _really_ into the touching thing. "The stiffness is probably a side effect."

"I agree," Negi agreed. It was not like he went out of his way to be contaminated by exotic poisons. At most he had found some poor sucker's corpse out in the middle of the desert with his nose bleeding when he had last come into contact with this poison. "I feel great now." Negi pulled off a compacted back flip into a sliding lunge using his right foot to descend on the spot before righting himself. He grinned at her saucily, "I'm feeling flexible."

"What a show off my master is," Gaia giggled, her eyes switched colours like a kaleidoscope before settling on brown. While the big details remained the same at all times but little details like her eyes changed colour at will. She claimed it was a sign of her rank in the demonic order. Her clothing shifted into a skirt with stockings while her rag which held her breasts in place turned into a blouse cut at the stomach. Negi smirked at her choice of footwear, a pair of cowgirl boots she knew were Negi's favourite. "Shall we go look for some clothes?"

Negi winked and concurred with her thoughts. _"Want to cause some mayhem?"_ The fact he used some telepathy had her covering her mouth to hold in more of those melodious giggling.

Suddenly another hissing sound came from the door as it was depressed, a brief hum from a force field lowering and a beeping sound like one that belonged to an opening safe Gaia had once broke into. She had pulled off that haul by doing what she did best and charmed a drugged up security guard to let her in with her wearing little more than a bikini top and string panties.

Man those were good times…

"How are you feeling Negi-kun?" Takahata Takamichi stepped into the room as casual as one would enter their own apartment and leaned against the perfectly white walls, cigarette dangling from his mouth.

Last night when they had briefly met on that school roof he had been wearing an identical suit to the one he wore now only blue instead of brown. He had adopted the same deceptively relaxed stance that hid all that power. The schoolteacher had changed little from when he first met him with that same eerily well kept facial chin hair and the same short spiky grey coloured hair cut.

"Hi Takamichi," Negi greeted, "Did you ever buy that Ferrari?"

"You decided I was buying that Ferrari," Takamichi said. He just stood there with his hands in his pockets. Gaia's wings shimmered into being and caught the light from the ceiling. As expected and as he always did react like this the teacher did not even flinch at her rather obvious attempt to provoke him.

"That you did master," Gaia concurred. "You pointed to it the last time you two met in Singapore when he turned his back to you for a moment to admire the car and you teleported into the shadows."

"I did, didn't I?" Negi mused; knowing damn fine he had pulled the oldest trick in the book to escape another lecture from the teacher who Negi knew meant well but couldn't drop an argument older than the dinosaurs. "Takamichi," Negi said after giving Gaia a mock warning look for giggling at the memory. She was not helping things. "It is nice to see you again and I promise this time not to teleport when we say goodbye to one another. So keeping that promise in mind ahem," Negi made a gesture to show his inadequate attire, "Could you get me some clothes?"

"I think I can do at least that much," Takamichi said, "While we do that I can show you around some parts of headquarters and we can give you the things you had shipped over."

"A sound idea," Negi said, "After you Gaia," Negi suggested gentlemanly, gesturing for her to go first. She rolled her eyes at him but obeyed him anyway without saying a word. She swayed her hips and summoned her tail so it would wag in time with her hips. Negi grinned when she pouted at another failure to fluster the experienced teacher while Negi amused himself by patting the former member of the crimson wings on the shoulder and mouthed an apology he didn't really mean before stepping out into the underground tunnel.

The corridor was cylindrical in shape with an almost arch shaped ceiling matching the two doors he could see on either side of him with the narrow metal corridors stretching out tightly right through on both sides with seemingly no apertures between the two circular blast doors. It looked like he had the only room in the whole complex but upon inspection Negi was impressed with the concealed nature of the door that when closed over would give the appearance of a door that never really existed. The hum of magic was stronger though that by holding one hand in the room and into the hall proved his hypothesis that any attempt to escape his hospital bed with force would have been much harder than he figured.

The Valkyrie Corporation did good work with their MDN (Magical Discharge Neutraliser) systems. Unlike dampening fields created by magic that made you feel like someone had given you a pair of concrete shoes and thrown you into the ocean you tended not to notice the MDN at work until you walked into a room where magical energy was more prevalent and then out again. He could see their trademark all over the construction or at least the renovation of this facility. In fact he was surprised he hadn't thought about that when he was crawling through those tunnels in Library Island and felt rather foolish about it. His machineguns and other gadgets came from the biggest supplier of magi-tech on both sides of the divide.

Takamichi led his guests down the left tunnel. When they reached the blast door Takamichi placed his hand upon a hand print recognition system directly centre and then resumed walking down another vacant corridor. They did this about six times in silence while in reality Negi and Gaia had a talk telepathically about random meaningless things whilst Takamichi once again showed that cool aloof side of him by merely showing the way.

At last in the middle of the seventh tunnel the mild mannered teacher stopped in the centre turned to the right where it looked like was him staring at a mere blank wall. From within it a square hole opened and a robot arm attached with some kind of camera came out and looked down upon the kanka-ho master. A red laser beam bathed his body from head to toe and after it was done it zipped close up into spectacled eyes. The teacher removed his glasses and the red beam was shined into his left eye. Takamichi held up his hand and his open palm was subjected to a burst of that energy as well.

"_That is one sophisticated scanner," _Negi mentally complimented, _"If that had been what we needed to deal with in Library Island we would never have gotten very far."_

"_The headquarters of this city keep getting more and more impressive,"_ Gaia returned, _"It is so much easier now to sense things and I can more than I could before like order, disciplined minds but I can feel treats in there too."_

Negi was kicking himself silently for missing the signs of being under a MDN field._ "We are in a military installation that have fighters that so happen to teach when not going to the rescue,"_ Negi argued, _"But to more important things Gaia. Is there anything we can exploit?"_

"_Hormonal tendencies like immature lust, uncertainty and feelings of inadequacy,"_ Gaia shot back, _"Teenagers work here in other words or maybe even small children reside here."_

Negi let out a snort that had Takamichi show some interest in them for the first time in a while. His eyebrow twitched ever so slightly as the scanner went back into its hole and a door depressurised and slid open to reveal another sealed door that opened to into what looked like an elevator.

"Follow me please," Takamichi requested, putting out his cigarette before doing so. Negi did his gentlemanly duty and motioned for Gaia to go in first. As she did so he grabbed her tail and pulled. She hissed in pain but got the message to change back to normal. Who knew how these people they were meeting were going to take seeing wings and a tail. Negi stepped into the lift and sat down on the conveniently placed railing inside it.

"Level three, section three please," Takamichi said out loud. There was a series of monotone beeps before the elevator door lifts closed. They ascended for a minute then unexpectedly it began to move horizontally. Negi fell into Gaia's chest. He grinned, languishing in her warmth before he retook his former position. It was just his luck it was a recently developed technology called a hyper lift that could move both vertically and horizontally.

"_Don't say a word,"_ Negi warned mentally.

"_I shall not say a word master."_ She giggled and projected a feeling towards him that felt like someone was getting annoyed or embarrassed and nudged her head towards the cool as ice Takamichi.

"Wow," Negi said out loud but was saved from Takamichi's questioning look by the lift coming to a halt. They were led to a darkened room so dark nothing could be made out except for small shadows. The temperature inside was also freaking cold like they were in an industrial meat freezer.

"Lights," Takamichi commanded. There was a similar beeping noise like in the elevator then several lights turned on where they were met with a small, empty room with two perfectly square holes parallel to each other with a giant metal pole. Negi was about to ask what the hell the room was for when Takamichi spoke again. "Recognise Takahata Takamichi employee type overseer number twenty thirty three alpha. Please give me Springfield Negi-san, employee type special contractor number one two three beta gamma's school uniform."

A whirring noise from a motor started inside the wall to his right. The metal pole started to vibrate and soon enough like a conveyor belt a plastic coated school uniform much like the one he had been given back at the room. Takamichi accepted his clothing on the teenaged mage's behalf and then handed it to him.

Negi had expected much but for all the suspense made all he got for his trouble was an automated drycleaner. Negi rolled his eyes and his demon was laughing daintily having picked up Negi's mood. "Where do I change?"

As if it was waiting for the question the artificial intelligence receiving Takamichi's command opened another pressurised door to reveal a mirrored changing room. Before Negi could get a comment from Gaia about assisting him changing (Takamichi had already been given enough ammunition to lecture him with) he stepped inside and quickly changed into his black blazer, white shirt with a blue striped tie that he used to hide his binding necklace and black pants. He was even provided some school issue shoes to wear and a school bag like a satchel.

"Oh you are so darling," Gaia squealed upon seeing him in a school uniform for the first time. Negi gave her a wink and did a moon walk after he stepped out of his changing room.

"I have waited years to see this," Takamichi stated approvingly, showing a lazy smile. He had his cell phone in hand and Negi groaned with the flash from his camera.

"Is that necessary?" Negi asked honestly, "Who are you going to show?"

"I promised Eishun a shot," Takamichi said, shrugging.

Negi decided to remain silent despite his urge to voice his issue with the teacher handing over images of him in a changing room to random people he only knew by name.

"I want one too." Unsurprisingly that was Gaia asking. She was batting her eyelids at Takamichi.

"I forgot when I gave you a cell phone," Negi muttered warningly. "Do not give her anything Takamichi."

"I will have it printed off for you," Takamichi said in a gentlemanly manner, ignoring the plight of his friend's son.

"You are such a good man," Gaia thanked earnestly. The signs her using a compulsion to briefly snare him were Takamichi's sudden stiffening breath and his brief dilation of his pupils.

The teacher stepped into the lift, taking the time with his back to them to pretend to adjust his tie. Gaia giggled once more and Negi followed in without making a comment.

"Are you alright Takamichi?" Negi enquired jokingly. To his disappointment the man looked positively normal when he turned round.

"The main hub," the teacher requested. Negi followed his line of sight that led to the smouldering look Gaia was sending him.

"_That is enough," _Negi commanded, nudging her in the ribs. _"Takamichi isn't going to play anymore."_

"_He's still flustered master,"_ Gaia said amused as usual. Her new plaything was outwardly giving a good show of conservativeness.

"_Just stop it please."_

The trip was a bit rougher than the first. Three times Negi found out why they provided hand rails as it went up then slid to the side before dropping down several levels before levelling out to a side once more until they came to a full stop. The lights went out and a scarlet beam passed over them from top to bottom.

"Takamichi," Negi started in a questioning tone, "Is this a multi spectral scanner?"

"I think so why?" Takamichi asked as it passed pass his neck.

"Will it illuminate," Negi said, looking at his hands. Indeed the mysterious silver of Lancea Mercurium living within his magic erebea markings was showing, glowing like a glow stick. "Know what never mind." It wasn't like it was a big secret but he didn't want Takamichi seeing where it hung out when he wasn't bashing in skulls with it.

"I had wondered where the lance mentioned in Kotaro's report had gone," Takamichi mused, "May I ask…"

"Better off asking the wind for answers to what the hell it is or its reasons why it came to me," Negi said off hand. Gaia`s eyes were actually glowing as well, the sensor was penetrating her guise and like she had two transparent layers of skin both her human and demon form was starting to show where the light was lit over her. "Looking good my dear."

"You're quite shiny too," Gaia flirted back, taking a provocative pose that emphasised her bosoms. "Do I look _just_ good to you master?"

"You scrub up very well indeed my dear servant," Negi said eloquently. The scan was completed and the sound of a lock unlocking brought hope that all the security checks were complete at last. Anymore of these holdups and the mage was wondering if he could smash his way through.

"Please state name and clearance code." It was an automated kind of voice that asked them that came from all around them. These security measures were getting insufferable.

"Takahata Takamichi, employee type overseer number twenty thirty three alpha. I'm escorting independent contractor, Springfield Negi-san, employee type special contractor number one two three beta gamma and…" He looked at Gaia awfully sheepishly.

"AA ranked succubus Gaia," Gaia supplied eagerly. It wasn't her full name but in order to say it required the human tongue and oesophagus to be literally capable of spinning three hundred and sixty degrees and the one time he had heard it he hadn't really as parts were below even what a dog could hear. So she was stuck with Gaia.

"And AA ranked succubus Gaia, servant of Springfield Negi-san, employee type special contractor number one two three beta gamma to see the base commander."

"Voice confirmed. Please proceed inside Takahata Takamichi and guests."

As soon as that voice was done the elevator door opened they were hit by the sounds, noises and sights of a state of the art military base in action.

It was gigantic. The base was built on four separate levels all facing a rotating 3D real time holographic image of Mahora city on a large crystal like holographic emitter. It showed everything to the smallest minute detail from trams moving around on tram lines to individual cars stating their current velocity. The system had floating monitors filled with code showing read outs from police radios right down to when the traffic lights were going to change colour. It even showed individual people in perfect resolution and colour.

Each separate terminal adjacent to it on all floors manned with uniformed operators had a specialised three dimensional interface like back in the dorm room on every monitor that all seemed to be dedicated to monitoring a separate piece of the 3D image in better magnification at any given time. In short it was the best example of computer tracking technology Negi had ever seen.

The interior of the room, its architecture however didn't look like it was custom built. In fact it looked positively ancient. All the rooms had columns and alcoves and had a feeling it had been around since before this city above him was built. It worriedly reminded the mage of a sacrificial roman altar he had been trapped in once.

As he stepped in Negi sensed the heavy chatter and atmosphere of this bustling nerve centre quieten for a moment as they stopped to stare at him. Negi in his usual show of wisdom waved to them all and jarred them back into working but some of the younger teens still tried to send covert looks when they thought he couldn't sense it.

"Didn't realise I was that famous," Negi murmured to his demon servant. She only quirked an eyebrow before grabbing onto his arm possessively to make this situation even more of a freak show. "Oh for the love of Jesus…"

"Follow me," Takamichi cut in before they could start bantering again.

"_Behave master,"_ Gaia said playfully, her voice in telepathy was scattered suggesting some kind of magical jamming field was in place here for anyone not authorised to use such magic in this room.

He and his new limpet were being led to a large elevator that served exclusively as the only entrance up to a basketball court sized office on a fifth floor that was impossible to see from where their lift had opened. It had this great single paned glassed observation balcony, sound proofed if Negi was not mistaken with a distortion filter to offer privacy when neededthat gave itself away where the polished steel of several big machines resembling mainframes sat inside with a projector screen at the very end caught the light from the fluorescent tube lighting. Some people were inside having a meeting or something including to his great delight the trio he had kicked seven shades of shit out of.

"Oh it's the idiots you beat up the other night," Gaia helpfully informed them. A girl sitting at a nearby console who was a bit younger than Negi with black hair tied into long dangling pigtails took offence it seemed at Gaia's exclamation. She tilted her coke bottle glasses to make it seem she wasn't paying attention to them but she had a fierce scowl that had a rather diminished effect with the fetching beret with a cross motif on top of it in gold thread she was wearing as well as her scarlet uniform with tartan short skirt. Gaia must have sensed it because she locked eyes with her and before he knew it the girl was blushing crimson and looking away.

"What did you do?" Negi groaned as Takamichi motioned them inside.

"Just playing," she teased, "It was so easy with all these teenagers and their suppressed lusts wafting around. It's like a buffet dinner in here."

The lift closed behind them and swiftly they were at the top of the control room and for once they didn't have a bloody security check to go through. Gaia had begun humming a tune on the brief trip while as ever Takamichi just looked cool and did a damn good job at it. When the lift stopped the door didn't open. Instead the lighting turned blue.

"The meeting is still going on," Takamichi enlightened, "So we have to wait for them to conclude before we can enter."

"Sure," Negi said shrugging, "Gaia, what's the mood inside?"

Gaia's eyes turned as black midnight as she reached out to touch the emotional energy prevalent in the next room. Her tongue ran along her lips as she worked.

"Anger, frustration, determination in the context of I believe to be in terms of closing in on stubbornness and oh… Lust?" she said, showing her appreciation of the last one. Ever heard of the phrase addicted to love? Negi knew succubi took that literally. They revelled on the stuff, treated it like confectionary or fine liquor hence the beautiful forms they preferred but you didn't need to be a demonology expert to know that. "It's an interesting meeting. Think they are talking about us?"

"Just in case keep monitoring them," Negi commanded, touching Gaia's shoulder as if he was giving her a reward. It was easier to transmit thoughts in dampening fields when you were in physical contact. _"See if you can twist the situation without being detected. A mage that can only bark like Takamichi is easy enough but these guys employ proper magical defences."_

"_Aren't you being a little mean to Takamichi-kun?" _Gaia asked with a look. Negi shook his head.

"_I mean nothing against his power or who he is but it just well… his kanka-ho is not magic. It is powerful but it has its limits. Just keep in mind the mages inside may be keeping an eye out for outsider manipulation but I have my faith in you."_

She broke out into a smile._ "Okay I'll get right on it."_

The room returned to its normal illumination. Negi double checked his uniform and declared it satisfactory. He heard a disapproving voice from Gaia who happily adjusted his tie for him.

"Stop being such a mother hen." Negi smirked at her mock show of horror as another sealed area depressurised and the door opened.

The office from below had looked smaller from below. A hidden section of the room not viewable from the bottom floor had an industrial brass teleportation circle with shallow trenches using liquid mercury as a conductor. These avoided being stepped in by a series of hard light energy fields etched painstakingly by runes every three centimetres of so on each side that fed eventually to two more circles, both of which sat on the desk ahead of the group and were designed for simpler tasks such as moving objects or more likely paperwork between departments. It was probably the same sort of system that moved the clothing around that he had gotten a few minutes ago.

To any normal mundane this would have looked rather impressive. To a mage like Negi it was unnecessarily power consuming and a sign of extreme paranoia from this overly cautious organisation. In Mundus Magicus they preferred to use runners in case someone you know intercepted the teleportation.

Anyway the room's crowd was gone and now the place was practically empty. All that was left inside was the knucklehead trio, all looking like someone had beat them up and they surrounded the table with the dark skinned man with his wrist cast on one side to the bearded dude with bandages wrapped around his head offering aid to the blonde sword wielding chick with her arm in a sling and using her sword as a makeshift cane on the other side to leave an opening to reveal the boss man, the commander of Mahora city.

Negi cursed instantly. He knew that man. His shishou had shown him in a picture the guy kept in his underwear drawer just to gain some sort of petty vengeance for some imagined slight from the old days. He still had his hair short except for the luscious ponytail like a girl that hung down one side of his body as the dapper gent leaned back in his swivel leather backed chair. But the tailored striped designer suit like some old British civil servant would wear was new instead of the mismatched long sleeved robe like in the photo. So was the tinted bottle green glasses and matching pimp cane leaning on the desk right over the emitter crystal to his monitor causing his computer screen in screen saver mode depicting a vampire being chased by what looked like a clove of garlic to shimmer.

The knuckleheads as they would now be collectively called were glaring at him hard and with bearded guy wearing pitch black sunglasses showing any facial expression that meant he was really mad at Negi.

"Negi-kun," the leader greeted, "I see you kept your word Taka-chan!" He jumped out of his chair, grabbing his pimp cane to lean on to come over to hug Negi. The mage stopped him in his tracks by pushing him back a little.

"Albireo Imma, my father's partner?" Negi queried. The powerful artefact the man gained had been mentioned off hand once by his master as being among the most unusual that had ever existed but for the love of him Negi could not remember what it was meant to be. Not that it mattered anymore since his father was dead and the pactio void.

"Yes that would be me," he said mischievously, making another attempt to hug Negi. As he was pushed away again, a little harder that time to make his point about his issues with hugging total strangers Gaia embraced him from behind as if to mark her territory. Albireo took it in good humour and backed away from the demon marking her turf. "And you must be Gaia."

"A pleasure," she purred dangerously.

"My computer tells me you are an AA succubus?" Albireo enquired curiously with eyes like a cat that had found an open cupboard door to explore, "I have never heard of your kind getting that kind of power."

"We generally don't," Gaia boasted while checking her nails. She loved to play her part. "By that time the few of us that can tap into that sort of power can feed off demons so we do not generally listen to any sort of summoning from magi but Negi was an interesting exception."

"I see," Albireo Imma said distractedly. The man looked at Takamichi expectedly and made a slight gesture with his head that only an expert like Negi could have seen. He smirked deviously and returned to his chair, motioning them to come forward with his hand.

As the man sat down the British national anthem came from somewhere in his jacket pocket and the man took out a mobile phone, a magi-tech model from again Valkyrie, click a few buttons before grinning like a loon. When Negi and company reached the table with Negi pushed by Takamichi and Gaia into standing in the centre Albireo proudly displayed what he was looking at to Negi.

Negi groaned at the image of him in his uniform. Takamichi had the gall to look sheepish by scratching the back of his head and looking away from him.

"When do I get mine?" Gaia whined.

"I already put it on his cell phone," Albireo admitted, opening a drawer to reveal a metal security case. He slid it over to Negi who opened it. Inside was indeed his mobile phone, a similar model to Albireo Imma's but with a section that he could clip on the scrambler disguised as an external battery pack. He also found the dismantled Sceptre pistol but with the round he had loaded missing but that was no big surprise. Satisfied in what he was seeing he shut the case but handed over the cell phone to Gaia who like an old pro accessed what she wanted and shrieked girlishly.

"Thank you for making her happy Albireo-san," Negi said sarcastically. The knuckleheads reacted stiffly to his tone but Albireo Imma was quick to cool their protests with a nonchalant wave.

"My pleasure," Gaia quirked an eyebrow at the tone he used at the last word but went back to admiring the picture. "But call me Al," Albireo insisted, "All my friends do."

"Okay Al," Negi said, showing his willingness to play nice, "What do you need me for?"

"Just a few things," Albireo said airily, "I have to do a few things, inform you of some other things you know things." As vague as he was deliberately being he said more than a long explanation could possibly say in half the time. That attack last night must have shook up the status quo.

"Alright then shoot."

Albireo Imma sat back onto his chair and put his shiny black shoes onto his desk, again disrupting the computer screen.

"Alright I'll give you the good news. Your items that we could not be place in your room that we received six hours ago are in storage locker eighteen such as your motorbike. I have your papers to transfer you to your new school prepared and everybody has been briefed."

"And the bad news Al?" Negi questioned flippantly.

"Look here," the tanned man with glasses warned. Negi tried to remember his name but yet again he hadn't cared enough to bother.

"Gandolfini," the boss man said gently, winking. Gandolfini backed away scowling and his friends were copying him. "Your little fight last night has forced us to close your school and to transfer all those pupils to St Ursula's high school for girls until the building is made safe. That should take us a year since you saw fit to shake the old campus to its foundations leaving cracks on nearly all of the supporting walls. As of exactly midday you will report there where you will meet your teacher who will guide you to your classroom. Kotaro-kun will be your classmate. Expect to use him to guide you around but he will be in all likelihood or I hope anyway," he left that hanging to show the innuendo he had left there, "Will be as lost as you are."

The next question Negi came up with he almost didn't ask as he sort of wanted to know but again he didn`t. "Will I be charged for the damages I caused to the school?"

"Of course not," Albireo said in an assuring tone. The teenager was glad. Negi had feared for a moment that he might have to pay the bill. "We missed most of it but our nearby unmanned aerial vehicles and the barrier mirror imaging system did catch the battle just before you approached the school and saw you tried to keep civilians out of it. You had no idea as to the enemies' capabilities."

"_It's just as well that they didn't figure out I was trying to use it to stop myself being cornered,"_ Negi thought darkly. Gaia seemed to read his emotion and squeezed his shoulder.

"I personally thought their names were a little stupid but yeah they were good fighters."

Retaining that fresh unfazed look, the mischievous mage carried on as cool as a cucumber. "Anyway because the building is unsafe you will be going to a new school and Toko-san here will now be your homeroom teacher."

"I hope we get along," Toko said genially. Negi could almost hear her teeth grinding at having to be polite and that bow must be agony with her injuries. Medical magic did wonders like putting on amputated limbs or replenish blood but get shot by a magical substance like unicorn blood infused scarlet rounds that only now Negi knew he must have at least glanced all three of them at least once and healing took much longer. "I will see you in the afternoon."

"Well now that you are introduced I only have to tell you a couple more things. One," Albireo held up his hand and wiggled a single finger, "We are now on yellow alert. That means we will be watching more closely so you don't end up all caught on your own like last time and two," he started again holding up a finger from his other hand. It was rather impressive considering he was sitting back and making himself look really unbalanced. "That little part of your deal with the dean where you have to help us when things go really bad is void. Instead we want to place you under the command of Asuna-chan and the Konoe Protection Group when they need you. You will meet them after your classes. Kotaro-kun will lead you to a general meeting at their headquarters after class. Do you have any questions?"

Negi didn't try to question his sudden reassignment to the Konoe Protection Group. It was probably going to be way better than being left to the tender mercies of one of these people, the so called captains of Mahora security that he suspected them to be but Negi knew to expect his school days to be hell with the stern look Toko-sensei was shooting him behind those glasses of hers. "Can I find my own way to the school? I have something to do first."

"Such as?" Albireo asked curiously.

"I have to buy a certain lady," Negi said, catching his servant's knowing and playful eyes, "A coffee I promised and I need to make a couple of calls."

"It is just as well that I have this map for you then," Albireo remarked, "It is in the secret compartment of your suitcase." Negi didn't care about that compartment being found out so easily. He knew it would be searched anyway before it was given to him. He had something better than a paper map in his bike. "You may do as you wish. I have your license authorised for the bike waiting for you at your dorm room but do not be late for class or I will have to report it to dean Konoe." That subtle threat had Negi nodding like a piston. The dean was the one guy he didn't want to piss off in this entire city. "And remember if you need us to aid you in your task do not hesitate to call. I added the necessary numbers to your cell phone. Use the telepathic frequencies we provided you with in emergencies or during downtime between the hours of 12pm to 7am. You are dismissed." The man made a move to get up until as if he had received a divine revelation from heaven he asked, "I do hope we can all have tea together sometime."

"I would like that," Negi agreed, silently perturbed at his unusual finishing statement. The man was unpredictable but not as annoying as his master had made him out to be. Negi had been half expecting the first meeting the two would have had to have involved some crazy adventure or something and not in a formal office setting.

The chief of Mahora climbed up from his chair, tapped a few holographic keys on his computer and the big teleporting circle in the back started to glow.

"Use that to get to underground garage three. I left your leathers in the saddlebag. Have fun."

Negi turned to each person around him "See you later Toko-sensei, Gandolfini-san…"

"Gandolfini-sensei," the teacher corrected quickly.

"Gandolfini-sensei," Negi said with a shrug that only seemed to make more frown lines on the dark skinned sensei, "And…" He motioned for bearded guy to say his name.

"Kataragi-sensei," he said gruffly.

"Kataragi-sensei," Negi said just as harshly as he said Gandolfini's name "Well Gaia, shall we," he offered his arm, "You can practice your bike leathers look."

"Oh thank you master," Gaia purred, taking the arm. They both stepped into the teleportation circle. "Bye Takamichi-kun!"

"Oh right later Takamichi," Negi said in farewell. The man had been so quiet he had already forgotten why he was pissed at him in the first place or that he had been in the room at all. (Latin) "Teleport."

Before the man could say anything they were swept up in a burst of light and taken away to their new destination.

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The teleportation circle exiting path was into a well lit multi storey underground parking garage and conveniently right in front of his bike. The bike was a classic Valkyrie made Midgard 1000cc street motorcycle, blue coloured with a silver streak. The saddlebag was open to show off his expensive black leathers but with the uniform on he was going to prefer his magical barrier so not to muss up his uniform.

"Give me my phone and change," Negi asked, taking his helmet and putting it on. Gaia handed him his phone with a pout of her cherry lips and shimmered her attire into a slinky red coloured bike leathers as well as taking her helmet. She got on the bike the moment after he did while Negi flipped a switch and a panel appeared on the dash. On the front were several features that no normal human would be allowed to see thanks to a spell. It had the standard satellite navigation system, anti collision detector and stealth system that disrupted targeting systems from some of Valkyrie's more destructive products. The system of features included interfacing with a tiny earpiece he already had surgically implanted in his eardrum to link up to this system and verbally speak the directions from the satellite navigation as well as be his hands free system for his various mobile phones. This worked for whatever bike he had as well.

"Well master," Gaia murmured, wrapping her arms right around his waist. She slid down his visor and started talking to him telepathically, _"Get me to my coffee master."_

"Yes my servant," Negi joked back. He took the time to select his course on the satellite navigation system, selected a nearby coffee shop and started the engine with the keys that were already in the ignition. He revved the engine and took off to the nearby car cage elevator to start his trip to school.

He was on his way at last to start his task and about fucking time too.

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End of task. Now we get to the school, meet Konoka and grin like mad people when he meets Mana again and finds out about life as a student. Stay tuned!


	5. Why I Never Went To School

"Neo Negima"

"Dancing On The Void"

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 5: Why I Never Went To School

Disclaimer: If I freaking owned Negima I would also have created Love Hina and if that were the case Mutsumi would have been with Keitaro. I may be a masochist but come on! At least Mutsumi was gorgeous!

**Member of "Otaku Town"**

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Negi's first full day where he wasn't a prisoner or beaten black and blue or hell even seeing the sun or the daylight in Mahora city was a warm and breezy one. The sun sat happily in a naked azure blue sky, its red and oranges, yellows and various shades of pastel colours warmed the body and soul of the populace. It looked safe in its title of ruler of the daytime and it reflected among the citizenry below it.

The mage was sitting outside in a wooden floored patio style outdoor area with his precious Gaia that belonged to a local coffee shop, local and proudly showed its status as not being part of a chain with its individual features and home comforts. The patio they were sitting in, decked with polished timbers was designed for those that simply sought company and conversation. The fenced off area was covered in fairy lights that were turned on at all times even during the day despite the high cost of electricity in this country. Their table like the rest around them was made of a rustic iron, a sort of fake antique look with a glass top that shone beautifully in the sun. The chairs the magical duo sat on were unusually soft and squishy unlike the hardback plastic chairs he was used to while inside the shop soft, worn couches and loveseats were set up in a way to encourage book lovers to loll away their afternoons after school or work enjoying free refills and the cosy atmosphere. The place was noticeably bereft of broadband or internet cabling of any kinds both inside and outside which stuck out like a sore thumb around its more modern and multiplying neighbours leaving adequate room for more people to sit inside where they would be intrusive computer corners with that irritating clicking sound from people typing Negi hated to hear when places like these were empty.

Negi sipped his second frothy mocha latte while checking the various messages on his cell phone he had accumulated over the past few days. Each of his many phones (so many in fact he bought them in bulk) were all configured up to act one and the same for example if he deleted a message on this phone all his phones did the same. Negi embodied the term laid back, looking quite an oddity in his school uniform in the quiet place as all students by now were at school. His precious Gaia was sipping her third espresso, nibbling her biscotti sensually (like she would do it in any other way) and making middle aged businessmen all flustered as they walked by with her blatant flirting or being more insidious when she manipulated their various emotions for her own personal amusement.

Like he had mentally groaned about before she had way too many perks to her contract but for the services she was providing her contract and her price were considered very generous to what he would have normally paid out.

When he had bothered to look away from his message reading (He had really been neglecting his phone for a while now) he found her sport both hilarious and mischievous but never actually said anything to show this. His shivering form, the sign of repressed laughter was plain to see to anyone that could see.

It looked like they had not said anything for nearly the moment they sat down to consume their coffees and their refills but they had chatted when either of them felt they needed to speak only they did this with their common bond telepathy. As usual they weren't taking anything seriously so the chat tended to be revolving around Negi and his "mistreated" inbox of texts.

"_Valkyrie just gave me twenty credits for Mjöllnir for spending two million this year,"_ Negi told her airily. _"Oh and,"_ he continued slurping his hot as hell coffee as he spoke, _"Apparently Nexus has some more of those pink parasite balls back in stock. I'll have to get Shiori to buy some before they run out."_

"_Nexus?"_ Gaia mused, her face was still and looking out into the quiet street, and the only movement was it following the various victims she was playing pranks with their emotions and feelings on. _"I thought you hated those people. Didn't they rip you off that one time with those dud grenades they sold you that you only found out didn't work just as you were surrounded by the Belize army?" _Negi nodded with a resigned feel to it._ "It must have taken you six hours to finish wiping all their memories from the survivors after you tore their convoy to pieces."_

"_Don't remind me," _Negi said, reminiscing about that particular death trap early on in his life. He had to lose a fifty percent bonus for revealing magic to get his butt out of that jungle and that so called "temple" that housed an artefact supposed to extend life was A not a temple but a shack and B the artefact didn't and had never existed._ "But they have the balls,"_ Negi said, wincing at the unintentional innuendo that thankfully his dear servant had missed, distracted as she was in her mischievous games. Looking for a change of subject he noticed she was tightening the bike leathers she was using as clothing to make her look even more scandalous. "Must you do that?" Negi said aloud, ultimately getting ticked off by the number of men walking by that kept bumping into things or people staring at her cleavage and some were nearly getting run over by traffic for god sake. He was grateful he did have a spell keeping the gawkers out of the place while they were drinking their coffees.

"_But it is much fun master,"_ Gaia said weakly, giving him the mental equivalent of raising her voice. Negi realised his slip and shrugged at his change of medium. _"Anyway,"_ she stated, _"Are they really worth it to deal with_ _fuck ups?"_

"_They're cheaper than the ones Valkyrie sold me for the library job."_ He texted Shiori to instruct his number two to buy the entire stock and taking into mind what he had just spoken to Gaia about to analyse them for defects and to get a receipt. He glared at the screen with a very nice background picture of Shiori sunbathing in the middle of the fields that used to be where his village lay. She also happened to be topless complete with a shy blush on her face. After his glare failed to get the desired response from the phone he demonstrated audibly his frustration about the time it was taking her to call him back. It was so annoying but he didn't want to make any outside calls with the scrambler until he knew it was working okay and that was only verifiable on her end. _"I wonder where Shiori is right now."_ Negi looked up at the sun and judged it to be around eleven, half eleven in the morning. He had class soon and would need to move to meet Toko, his new homeroom teacher before then.

"_At this time master she will be inspecting the cave,"_ Gaia informed with a slight exasperation. A nearby fat businessman looked like he was going to wet himself before Gaia turned round and looked at him with a sexy sort of self assurance about her. Her elbows were put on the table so she could rest her chin. _"You know she will be saying sorry for the first ten minutes to you the moment she checks her computer screen master."_

"_I know but I just want her to call so I can make sure the scrambler is working on her end. I would hate Mahora to get hold of my frequency." _Negi checked his coffee and finished it. Standing around when he could be doing something always made him impatient._ "Want another?" _he asked, waving his cup at her.

"_I would like that," _she replied, looking up at the window where the young man who ran the place was blatantly staring at her under the pretence of cleaning a table that hadn`t been used since before they had arrived. His demon squirmed and the sound of somebody smacking their shin into a table inside made him nearly laugh out loud. The woman behind the counter, probably his wife or lover was openly glaring at him._ "Can I…?"_

"_No," _Negi interrupted, knowing what she was going to ask while taking her small tea cup from her,_ "I only have half an hour before class. If you play with the manager we'll end up being late." _He laughed at her pouting and turned his back on him again, an action that a watching civilian might mistaken for her being angry at him but he knew she was merely going after prey that she was allowed to play with.

Negi walked into the building, first snapping the aversion spell in place keeping the shop empty with the sound of wind chimes against a glass door to announce his arrival. Inside it was much cooler inside with the sound of fans whirling from above. It was empty with a red tiled floor except for the short woman who was manning the counter with red hair wearing an apron and black clothes underneath and who couldn't be older than twenty years old waiting to serve him. She was like a woman with a multi personality disorder who switched her glare at the male rubbing his sore shin to a professional smile at Negi when he approached the counter.

"Can I have the same again but extra large and to go," Negi asked politely, putting his cups down. He looked up at the big old brass plated clock and had some ambivalent feelings concerning the time. He had more than enough time to head to school but Shiori would have to fret herself silly until late afternoon because he was going to be in class soon.

"No problem," she replied, grabbing a couple of plastic cups with their shop slogan of a sun with sunglasses on and started operating the coffee machine with big clouds of steam coming out of the piping hot water from the nozzles. He waited patiently, absently watching for signs of a phone call that wasn't going to come if she was checking on the petrified people in the cave.

Those people were treated like jewels to Negi from the very start of his journey when he journeyed home, booted out on their asses the inept Welsh authorities watching them and sealed up the cave that used to be his uncle's storeroom that the idiots had taken to store the petrified people. He had gone as far as creating sophisticated perimeter defences that made some master magi squirm in trying to work out the formulae and structuring reinforcement surrounding them to keep them safe that took him a long time to gather the materials essential to construct them. In turn later on Shiori did everything she could to keep them safe in her own way and to make them as accessible to her magister magi as physically possible from individual web cams to installing and periodically turning on fan belts to make sure they didn't get too dusty. She even individually inspected them for damage and wear as well as keeping separate records.

"Thank you," Negi said, taking the finished cups of coffee. The woman smiled at his quick show of gratitude and smiled, beaming him with a large smile.

"You are welcome," she replied, working the old fashioned till. "Please come again." She bowed slightly. Negi bowed in turn, taking his beverages and exiting with a charming smile.

Gaia was waiting for him outdoors with a young man in a sharp suit who was trying and failing spectacularly to flirt with his beloved demon servant. Mr Businessman was doing the "moves" and kept making his shaggy brown hair fly with the wind. It was kind of pathetic to be honest and Negi soon caught his servant's eye that had a feeding look as she drank in that complicated emotion called arrogance that she disguised by mussing up her rouge hair. The demon claimed it was one of her favourite emotions and yes she had made the joke about it tasting like chicken.

Still he was regretting turning turn off the aversion charm before he came back with the coffee. The first warning sign Negi Springfield saw of impending danger was the way she made an effort to look into her target's eyes and look interested in what the suit had to say. Then the other signs all came into play like clockwork because the red haired mage knew every twitch and movement of her deceitful tongue. He could smell the trouble she was about to cause like it was made of the foulest substance known to man.

"Master I missed you," Gaia called out, waving exaggerating her wave to him that caught everyone in the surrounding market streets attention. Negi groaned as his prediction came true and bit back the comment about going into the fortune telling business. He rewarded her playing by rolling his eyes and presenting her coffee to her meanwhile allowing her to continue her game. She got grouchy when you interrupted her fun and Negi hated being the one to endure it.

The demon made a cooing noise of delight as she skipped over to him and collected her cup. It was quite comical how the dude with the suit reacted to all this. It would take a crane to lift his jaw that had hit the concrete so hard Negi was half expecting to see a crack in the floor. "Thank you." Gaia puckered her lips and kissed him on the cheek. She pulled off the top and had a generous slurp of her hot drink. "We have so got to come back here," she emphatically ordered.

"I agree," Negi said more neutrally, trying to look abashed at her display but he was so used to it his issues with her lack of modesty had taken a vacation after the third time she walked out of his hotel room in Tempe in the land of Tempe Terra half naked onto the balcony. And no it was not the top half. "We better head to the school. When we get there," Negi stopped talking and continued mentally as Gaia had managed to amass a crowd from all her theatrics from shocked housewives to angry men right through to the suit guy who was trying to stealthily slip away after being beaten to the punch by a school kid. _"You will return to within my body in the first private spot we can find until class has ended."_

"_But master,"_ Gaia whined, _"Will I have to do this every day?"_

Negi shook his head and pulled her into a hug so they didn't look crazy to the mundane people, _"No Gaia. I will need you to do use your talents for me to speed up the search for these people, manipulate them to talk or whatever else I need of you."_

"_Feeding?"_ Gaia asked. Negi nodded. _"Killing?"_ He took a moment but he grunted his agreement. Unlike every other situation he had been in his life he had another higher power to take into consideration.

"_All I ask is that you make sure they are guilty first,"_ Negi murmured, pulling her out of his hug. She in turn gave him a devilish look before she pulled away and started walking up the street, through the distracted crowd of people to where they had left the motorbike on a shady corner.

Negi helped her along the busy street, taking her by her hand when she insisted on causing more trouble with her powers. The disgruntled teen gave her a warning look that she obeyed this time and kept pace with him to where the bike was on the street corner.

Before long Negi was moving at high speed through the city's many streets. He lazily traversed through the small amount of people who liked to drive in this pedestrian friendly city using his collision detector to avoid hitting anyone. His G.P.S spoke in a feminine tone various directions to get to his new school. He followed without question the shortest route possible sending him through narrow alleys, across a beautiful park that housed older students from nearby universities and colleges enjoying their free time until eventually coming into a quiet residential area filled with dormitories where they lived with a high walled off perimeter all round them with no signs of an opening for him to pass through into and a large tram station. On the platform he could see a departing tram filled with students.

"_I wonder where the entrance is to the campus,"_ Negi said to himself. The entire section of the school looked like a fortress and must have felt very safe for anyone that moved around inside it. After feeling a sensation from his magical senses Negi pulled up his visor the mage's muttered spell illuminated the various trip wires and burglar alarms present in the air as well as the illusions and spells designed to make the walls slippery based on a force field concept to replicate a waterfall that didn't exist anywhere else around the area. It was high security for a lot of magi, stuck out a lot but the set up was nothing special like the layers of spells around Library Island. A bit of planning and he could have slipped in undetected unless there were more subtle magic inside.

"_Look master,"_ Gaia pointed to a large map inside the parking spaces where a large map onside clearly indicated that inside the walled area it was a pedestrian only area with only some spaces around the back end reserved for staff. _"We have to take the tram master."_

"_I wanted to take the bike,"_ Negi groaned. A warm feeling swarmed inside his head and that irritation changed to a warm feeling like content like he had just had a sudden mood swing. _"Do you mind not eating while we're driving?"_ Negi felt the sensation wander off reluctantly and the negative aspects of his heart returned. She was only probably trying to be helpful. _"I just don't want a repeat of the autobahn."_

Drawing emotions caused unintentional and unpredictable side effects like the time he had three bullet wounds in his shin while driving at high speed near Frankfurt am Main. At the time while he was being pursued and racked by pain and fear, Gaia made it worse by siphoning off the fear. It caused him to become reckless, stupidly so nearly giddy and well a long story short he crashed… Negi crashed rather badly actually and only Gaia emerging and grabbing him mid air stopped his imminent demise. The inertia made her drop him by accident and three broken ribs and a femur later after hitting tarmac he was out for the count with no memory of how he got to a hospital waking up two days later with only a short story from Gaia to explain what happened next. All Negi really understood that his servant had left out was on the six o`clock news about a mystery bike crash, a cracked road that had been his randomly oscillating shields to absorb some of the impact and three dead people crushed by a torn apart Lamborghini, the same type of car that had shot at him.

Since then Negi Springfield banned his demons from having a snack or trying to comfort him when he was driving or operating heavy machinery and never spoke of that incident again. Sometimes Gaia seriously scared him.

"_Just trying to help,"_ Gaia said, sounding that again she was pouting, _"And I am sure you will survive with once not looking cool,"_ Gaia remarked, making her realistic looking visor disappear. _"I still think you are cool master."_

Oddly enough that one piece of half assed assurance worked rather well and the happiness he felt was reciprocated by the demon tightening her hold around his waist.

Negi pulled up the tram station, with some parking squares out front and a check point to pay the money with a disgruntled looking guard watching a television. Negi pulled up his visor again and banged the window to get his attention.

The sticky window was slid open. "How long are you staying?" the man asked without looking away from his show.

"A few hours," Negi replied. "How much is a day ticket?"

"900 yen," he said shortly, lazily holding his open palm out. Gaia retrieved his wallet for him and handed the cash transaction. The man took the money, punched some buttons into a computer and handed him a sticky piece of paper for him. Negi claimed it; the security guard then shut up the window rather abruptly, let up the partition and went back to his show.

Negi parked his bike next to the large map of the campus directly adjacent to a gate allowing access to the tram station and looked for what he was seeking. All around him were a number of residential dormitories for all the school exclusive to girls in the area from elementary right through to college and universities. The school he wanted was a short tram ride away.

"We had better move quickly before my homeroom teacher decides that being a bitch is fun," Negi said.

"We better get moving then master."

Negi applied the ticket to his windscreen and pressed down on a solid panel of the bike. The bike was illuminated an angry red to tell him the magical version of an anti-theft system was now active.

The pair as expected of someone who was wearing tight motorbike leathers gathered some attention from the sparse male populace that now existed here thanks to him but that would soon come to an end. They entered the station and luckily the next scarlet tram was empty. They entered the rickety old thing and Negi took that chance with nobody looking to recall Gaia in much the same way she appeared. Negi didn't even bother to hide what they were doing as all anyone would see were a momentary burst of intense light and then a student standing alone in a tram compartment.

"_I'm already bored."_

"_You have only been inside for what," _Negi checked his watch to emphasise his point,_ "Three seconds,"_ Negi grumbled at his demon's whining. It was one of her less attractive qualities. _"Are you saying I am boring?"_

"_To be honest master I can see this all being boring,"_ Gaia replied honestly, _"All this class you have to attend. Your own master didn't give you a schedule right?"_

Gaia had only met Jack Rakan on the odd occasion. Their contract came after the training when his master routinely and randomly attacked him no matter what he was doing in the name of training. Lessons were as varied as six times a day to once a month depending on how that man's mood took him. Sometimes during his time in the oasis ruins Negi wondered if Shishou remembered he even had an apprentice. Luckily Negi was taught magic between those times by his buddies or he might still be there…Negi couldn't help it. He shuddered at the thought of going back to train some more with that man.

"_He only trained me when he wanted to. Shishou expected me to learn a lot by experience and hard work."_

"_Sounds better than learning about dead geezers or simple mundane mathematical formula you will never use."_

"_Actually alchemy mathematics is more similar to mundane mathematics these days," _Negi declared, feigning smugness. She was someone who could read his entire emotional range but she liked to play games and admitted unlike most symbiotically linked contractors she refrained from doing it too often or it would get "boring".

They continued to chat throughout their short trip about anything or anyone they happened to come across they knew that correlated with those topics of choice. As usual they maintained a happy rapport and since it was telepathy they used they talked about a hundred different things at once.

At last after a short trip he pulled into the heart of the compound and was surrounded by girls at all sides wearing red blazers, tartan skirts with those classic knee socks and carrying a pretty little satchel. Some older ones were wearing a black knee length dress like a nun's habit with a white collar and a black tie like lace around their necks while wearing a black loose jacket and a matching satchel were walking among them too but no boys that he could see anyway.

When he got off the station he suddenly felt the eyes of everyone in the area looking at him. His heightened senses felt it like a series of cold stabs at his body and to be honest it really freaked him out. He knew this was the female domain of Mahora city. They were famous for their segregated schools that kept the two genders apart. Still Negi had not felt this feeling of being deeply scrutinised except for the time he had to jump into a hot spring back in Mundus Magicus that only allowed women in to avoid an army patrol looking for him.

"_Just find the place master,"_ Gaia said soothingly. _"Either that or you can start selling tickets to everyone to gawk at you."_

Negi looked around for his building he wanted and there were plenty of school buildings around him. They seemed to cater for hundreds of students at once, far more than he was used to or was expecting. The dormitory like buildings, giving away their function with hung out futons or bed sheets on small balconies surrounded two three storey structures with iron fenced off rooftops like the school he had trashed just the other night. They were massive buildings made of sandstone and each had the same majestic stone staircase that straddled an elaborate high rise base with archways underneath that carried vending machines and stone seats to sit and chat in the shade. The one he was looking for he was not exactly positive about and he stood there debating where to go until a certain blonde and only female member of the knuckleheads caught his eye as she waved at him impatiently from the top of the stairs.

"I found her," Negi said sarcastically, "Oh joy." Negi walked up the street slowly, deliberately riling up the impatiently waiting hurt woman. Some of the nun lookalikes kept their eyes on him the entire way until he was in front of his new homeroom teacher.

"I am glad you could make it Springfield-san," Toko greeted rather unenthusiastically. "I have been waiting for you."

"_She's a really sore loser," _Gaia commented. Negi had to bite his lip. She still looked really messed up and tired from this morning. It almost made him feel sorry for hurting her until he remembered that if they hadn't interfered he would not be in this situation in the first place. _"You don't know if the dean had already sensed you before you entered Mahora."_ Negi pretended his servant had never said anything about the dean's superiority.

"Sorry I got a bit lost," Negi admitted.

"Didn't you spot the circle I put in your map the commander gave you?"

"_She has you there master,"_ Gaia murmured, rubbing in the fact that suitcase with said map was back in the bike. _"You always assume your stuff is better than theirs."_

"_You are being very useful right now,"_ Negi thought back, deciding to play the idiot just so the woman would get moving, "I used the GPS on my bike instead," Negi said. He rolled his eyes when she sniffed disdainfully at his apparent incompetence and turned her back to him and led him up the stairs to the atrium to the school.

Up close at the very top of the school he was very impressed. The main hall contained hundreds of plain grey shoe lockers and polished wooden floors. Like the teacher he took off his shoes and followed her about two hundred metres to a top shelf locker and handed him a silver key.

"This is your shoe locker," she stated uncaring, "Inugami-san is next to you so you won't get lost." She motioned for him to walk to another hallway ignoring him as much as she could after he changed his feet, inwardly snarling at how small the damn things were to his bigger western feet up into a stairway and up a floor.

What he saw was a pretty well financed school. It was fancy with a huge cafeteria on the ground floor that was empty because lunch had ended not so long ago. On the first floor all he could see while he was led across it was a bare wooden floor, barren wooden walls with only a bare notice board in sight and a bunch of sliding wooden doors with the sound of people congregating inside. It was really bright though with loads of narrow singular window frames instead of the usual large panes of glass you would expect.

His classroom was at the end of the hall and the loudest one of them all. Toko began to let herself in until she stopped and handed him a piece of paper.

Negi found it listed several clubs with a heading that was a warning saying joining one was mandatory and another sub notice stating because the boys school was closed that also meant the sports facilities because of safety fears. They supposedly didn't know if the entire building was safe at all.

"_Well I have to say master you have the worst luck ever,"_ Gaia japed.

"Don't remind me," Negi said out loud that was apparently loud enough of a whisper that Toko could hear him even with the loud classroom. He skimmed the list, not caring what he chose as he had no plans of staying the entire year if Negi got his way with locating Seijou.

"_I think you should pick the swim team,"_ Gaia suggested.

"_Why is that?"_ Negi asked curiously.

"_The chance for late night skinny dipping and the chance to see me in a bikini of course master,"_ Gaia said plainly as if it was a normal thing to say. He imagined that if she was in physical form she would be licking the circumference of her pouted lips by now.

"_Why didn't I see that one coming?"_ Negi groaned, resisting the impulse to bang his head off the wall until it caved in.

"_Just do it master,"_ Gaia persisted, _"I get to see you in trunks too."_

"_But you see me in less every single… You know what never mind."_ The red haired super mage had long given up on understanding the female mind and even more so his confusing partner. Instead Negi simply gave into his demon's demands and scribbled his name against the box next to the co-ed swim team and gave the paper to the disgruntled teacher who adjusted her glasses to look at what he had chosen.

"The pool is being repaired so there will be no club activities until next week so until then you will have to wait. Check with the school website just in case but we have had enough distractions so let us go in." She opened the door roughly and instantly the room silenced and everyone went rigid except for one, a blonde girl with a haughty expression on her face.

"Stand," the girl commanded, the class doing so instantly. Negi deduced she was some kind of class leader, an iincho if he knew his Japanese. "Bow," she added and like trained sheep the class obeyed including a grinning half Inugami with his camouflage up to hide his doggy features who had taken a seat at the back. "Sit." They all sat back down in perfect synchronisation.

The teacher seemed to come to life in a moment. She was in her domain, her seat of power so to speak much like the dean treated the city and his personal office as his. The blonde teacher seemed to glide into the room, no longer hobbling as she took her place at her desk with a whiteboard behind her. She motioned Negi with her hand to enter like a queen would usher a subject forward in her court.

"Today class we have a new transfer student…" she started, handing to Negi lazily a marker pen.

"_She is really getting a kick from this isn't she master? Maybe she bats for the other team?"_ Gaia said giggling so loudly he accidently winked at the class of girls staring at him with most of them now blushing at him.

"_Wouldn't put it past her to be honest,"_ Negi replied. _"The chick who was giving the orders looks like the kind of girl who would swing that way."_

At the back with what looked like the entire nun outfit including a silver cross around her neck was a dark skinned girl who seemed to stare at him hard with a blank stare to make it impossible to work out if the woman wanted to hate him or not. She reminded him a bit of Mana-chan but he knew she didn't have any siblings.

"_Wow tougher crowd than I thought master."_

"_My roguishly handsome looks and my irresistible charm will get a workout no?"_ Negi joked.

"Springfield-san?" his teacher prompted, breaking him from his chat. Negi played his act of the handsome fool to perfection as he wrote his name up onto the board.

"My name is Springfield Negi," Negi greeted with a winning smile, "I come from Wales." Negi bowed deeply, "I hope we all get along."

"_Any smoother and you would be slipping across the floor master,"_ Gaia drawled. A group of girls were blatantly staring at him with blushes on their cheeks and hearts in their eyes.

"Please be sure to help him get around his new school girls," the sensei asked kindly. The girls all stated their affirmatives rather enthusiastically, "Well now Springfield-san," Toko said slowly, "There is an empty chair right at the back next to Inugami-san. Go sit there so we can begin class."

Negi quickly assumed his seat in the second row to the window of a possible six rows lined with wooden desks. One girl slipped something into his hand as he walked past and upon sitting down next to Kotaro who quite frankly looked weird without his ears and tail he opened the nicely folded note to reveal a name and phone number.

"Here I thought the Japanese were a shy people," he said in greeting to his roommate, showing off the note and grinning at the pretty raven haired girl. Negi waved to her and she returned her attention back to the teacher with rosy cheeks.

"I don't want to even know how you did it," Kotaro whispered, "But it doesn't really bother me. I have a girlfriend."

"Lucky you," Negi murmured. He was very curious as to why Kotaro was so quick to divulge said information. Was he feeling threatened? Did part of his Inugami nature make him territorial or feel the need to be an alpha male? Hanyo amused him so. Kotaro was not the only one to have someone. Shiori was his retirement one way or another and she would play a big part of his new village life when it was returned to its former beauty. "I have a girl waiting for me back home."

"Springfield-san," Toko interrupted sharply, "Can you please pay attention."

"Yes Toko-sensei," Negi apologised, not meaning one word of it. Her eyes were shooting daggers at him.

That was the pattern of his lessons. Every teacher that came in kept their eyes on him and Kotaro but especially Negi and each and every one of them had a magical aura which suggested they were being annoying on Toko's orders. It was the case that every time he tried to speak to Kotaro he was interrupted in mid sentence until the school day was complete with only Gaia making the odd observation or joke to keep him sane. When that final bell rang Negi couldn`t be happier for it to be all over. After the blonde iincho made her little song and dance the teacher, a short balding man who looked like he should be in jail for being around teenage girls left the room wiping his brow.

"_Thank god,"_ Gaia said, yawning. It seemed that silence for the last twenty minutes was for a good reason. _"I nearly annulled the contract just to get out of this damn room."_

"Negi," Kotaro started, showing he didn't hold much credit to Japanese etiquette by using his first name without asking but Negi didn't in all honesty give two craps, "Set-chan and Asuna-chan are waiting for us at the front gate." Negi turned to face him just as he put his flip cell phone away with some stupid looking chain hanging from it with a skull insignia. Kotaro suspiciously took the time to look around the room where several girls were lingering around the room. He subtly took out a bit of paper with a symbol on it and threw it up into the air. He chanted something quickly in a tongue Negi didn't know and that paper turned into ashes. Like a wave all the girls left the room except for the iincho who seemed to be waiting for someone by the blackboard. Negi eyes shifted with a subtle spell and he could see the trained aura the leader was packing that explained her lack of a sudden need to leave the room. "Now I have to ask you something."

"Shoot," Negi asked, turning his own cell phone back on. There were a lot of missed calls on it.

"_Told you,"_ Gaia sang in his head, _"She's going to be so upset that she didn't call you before you turned your phone off."_

"Oh great," Negi groaned, not looking forward to the five minutes he would need to calm his precious Shiori down. When Kotaro looked at him funny he pointed to his head and mouthed the word demon. "You were saying."

"As I was trying to say please do not mention anything related to magic to Kono-chan," Kotaro asked seriously and the look didn't suit him. "About three years ago while Kono-chan was on vacation back in Kyoto someone kidnapped her and tortured her for information about a demon we have sealed in a shrine in the main annex. When we got her back she wasn't the same anymore and well…"

"So," Negi interrupted but stopped as he felt awfully awkward for a moment. He had interrupted in a very insensitive manner and Kotaro had a neutral expression but underneath he had to be irked that Negi was being all nonchalant about it. It was not like they could summon up succubus of Gaia's rank to remove the blues when needed like he had. Gaia had saved him on the antidepressants since his journey had not been all rainbows and sunshine. "You needed to bury her memories I guess."

"Yeah… In order for her to recover from all that happened to her yes we sealed up her memories of magic."

"So say nothing about magic and we will be fine?" Negi shortened that Kotaro nodded to agree with what he said was correct, "So she's a good mage?" He sensed the hanyo had been insinuating it. He ignored his own impulse to suggest a means of improving the clearly crappy memory spell she was under since Kotaro looked like he was back in a better mood.

Western magic had effective mind wiping or suppressing techniques involving potions and advanced caching spells that locked up the memory inside a containment field like a locked door until someone used the key to open it again. It was certainly better than having to watch what the hell you said all the time.

"Yeah," Kotaro said happily and looked distant like remembering something happy for a few moments, "Kono-chan was the most powerful healer in the eastern world with her raw power and she was a talented Onmyoujutsu mistress. She could do anything from reattaching limbs to suppressing powerful demons."

"Explains why she needs some skilled guard dogs I suppose," Negi theorised, "Especially hiring someone of Mana-chan's level," he mused further. Tatsumiya Mana was not cheap. If you wanted something or someone removed without magic everyone knew to hire her. "Her powers unsealed or if she was turned into a puppet for another higher power without any sort of mental protection would be potentially catastrophic with her skills never mind the political implications from the head branch of Kyoto if his daughter was captured and held for ransom or something. I take it she has no active pactio contracts or unconscious defences?"

"Kono-chan prepared some last line demon contracts attached to some markings she made to look like faded scars if that is what you mean but apart from that Kono-chan decided to rely on me, Asuna-chan and Set-chan but later we added Tatsumiya-san and Kaede-chan."

"Still," Negi said sounding totally unconvinced with Kotaro and his reasoning. Pactio contracts were not that hard to perform. You find a bonder and draw a magical circle; exchange a kiss an elementary kid would give his mother and bam! You had yourself a partner. Sure Gaia was an unusual choice for a bonder between him and Shiori but it was so easy a fucking ermine could do it. "She didn't perform a pactio with you at least? I know from experience that a partner can be pretty useful."

"_I hope you are referring to me,"_ Gaia demanded.

"_You and Shiori,"_ Negi corrected. _"Without both of the women in my life I would be lying dead in a ditch half naked or something."_

"_Just glad you know your place master."_ She then went silent again.

"She never asked," Kotaro shrugged, his fingers were lingering around a cigarette he was trying badly to hide. "I didn't even know what one was until after she had all her memories sealed up."

"I'll keep my mouth shut," Negi promised sincerely. "So can we go and meet her now? This Asuna…"

"Kagurazaka, Asuna," Kotaro corrected, "Yeah we better go before she blows up on me for being late with you. She's the one that told me most of what I know about you. She used to live with Takahata-sensei until she entered elementary school."

Negi had never heard that piece of information and it was hard to imagine Takamichi volunteering information like that. It didn't fit in the image Negi had of him that changed depending on his mood or by encounter. In fact come to think of it Takamichi rarely said anything about his family or friends. What he did know of his father and his exploits had come mainly from third party sources outside of his shishou's occasional throwaway comments and it was not like Negi broadcasted his disapproval of his father's lifestyle or the way he indirectly led the destruction of his home village in a revenge attack to get Takahata or anyone that knew his father to get them talking to dispute his opinions on the subject. Negi kept his issues publicly at least with the authorities as in some places where his father fought for the liberation of the Mundus magicus had a law banning anyone badmouthing the famed magi.

Takamichi had said very little of well anything except his attempts for him to come and settle down. The old man hadn't even told him about Albireo running Mahora until he was five feet away from the commander. It made him curious. What mysteries were left in the mists of time regarding Takahata Takamichi? Negi decided to have Shiori look it up for him sometime.

That line of thought made him want to smack himself in the head. He had already forgotten about calling her. The longer the red head left it the worse it was going to be for him.

"So we are going now?" Negi asked, typing in a message. He waited until it was confirmed and a moment later the phone rang to the tones of the rolling stones hit "I can get no satisfaction" and hung up on the caller. The system was working. The message to phone him and to wait for Negi to phone Shiori back later when he could was made clear.

"_You are only delaying the inevitable,"_ Gaia said in a sing song tone.

"_I think I'll survive,"_ Negi drawled. When he caught Kotaro looking at him funny he raised an eyebrow at him.

"You talk to that demon of yours too much," Kotaro sighed, grabbing his bag, "Let's go already." He muttered something under his breath that seemed to do nothing until a feeling like someone had thrown an ice cube down his neck was felt. Negi concluded the piece of paper Kotaro had burned effects had been removed. He only wished he knew how the hanyo was doing it. Onmyoujutsu was not one of his major magical subjects he had learned from his master.

Negi allowed his new friend to lead the way. It wasn't long before the blonde girl waiting intercepted them at the front by blocking their path with her arms folded like she owned the place. She seemed normal enough but he could see the steely expression in her narrowed eyes. Without even thinking his hand snatched something out of the air just as something else shut the open door with a slam.

In his hand struggling to get free was a shadow strand. His eyes followed it to the girl in front of him and in defiance to her dirty little tricks and remembering those damn paper strings that had thoroughly torn him to shreds only last night, the red head viciously snapped it into nothing with a mere flick of his wrist. A magical wind arrow silently appeared around his shoulder ready to retaliate.

The girl looked a little uneasy at his feat of magic but the blonde soon met his challenge head on. Around her body the girl's shadow expanded around her, swallowing windows and plunging the room into darkness. Before long it was impossible to see his hand two feet in front of himself.

"My name is Goodman," the girl's voice echoed around the room. It was a nice spell but that was about it. She was trying to make it harder for him to locate her position. "Goodman, Takane, class president of 1B. It is not nice to meet you Springfield Negi-san."

"Nice to meet you Goodman-san," Negi greeted back, "Is this how you introduce yourself to all your classmates?"

After waiting and getting no answer he snapped his fingers and a discharge of air acting as an echo like sonar bounced around the room and detected her instantly though it was difficult with all the furniture in the way like the desks and the chairs all producing signals that together made it all seem like one large echo. The arrow floating around his shoulder shot out at the most likely target, using her height to guess where she was but almost instantly it was snuffed out with no trace.

"_She's hiding her attacks by blocking the light from the windows,"_ Gaia said. _"It is not a new trick, I have seen this done before and I expect she is allowing the light to bend around the shadows to allow her to see somewhat more than you so despite the utter darkness you see I would be careful. She has an extremely effective tactic at her disposal."_

Negi debated his potential response to the girl's challenge. It was not that hard to see after checking her aura that she was little match for him unless she had some serious practical training Negi did not need to get all that serious but to be honest he was still feeling a little anger from last night and it was building at her slowness to press her advantage. So the mage got to work. He looked left to right, up and down and concluded there was no gap in this infinite black void being projected around him so the treasure hunter ruled that his eyes did not work in this situation. Negi and his other senses were going to have to pick up the slack. This was going to be like the fight with the shadow men only he knew a great deal about how shadow experts worked their magic. Usually those with lesser skill just spammed tons of weak shadow marionettes and rushed their target. They were effective, silent killers so he was relying on his shielding to warn him of any incoming offensives while also taking into consideration the chance that the shadow covering the walls and windows could be a separate dimension created by her…

"Ah what the hell," Negi decided, summoning a tight barrage of sixty magical arrows and fired them across the room. A scream coming from one direction allowed him to home in on his target with a koku shundo enhanced elbow towards her general vicinity. It almost worked; his elbow strike hit something only it wasn't soft and yielding like flesh as he wanted. It was instead like hitting something with more give like fabric. Then that material started to move around him swiftly constricting his entire body tightly until it was taut and brought him back to earth, banging his shin on a desk in the process.

How quaint. It seemed she had been waiting for him to make the first move…

"I have you Springfield-san," Takane declared, "You cannot…"

"This is nothing to be afraid of!" Negi shouted angrily, testing for a weakness by pushing his forearms out. She was not doing herself a favour by continuing to replicate his rather humiliating defeat last night. After deciding that physically freeing himself was not going to happen without seriously powering up his physical reinforcement magic and showing anything that would make the girl think she was pressing him, his eloquent response to the matter at hand was to expand his magical barrier out a few inches allowing him to slip free by ducking under and nearly performing a full splits on the dirty floor to avoid being ensnared again despite the protest from his sore shin. Negi traced the general path of the strand with his finger delicately using it to calculate the rough path of his target before throwing a gigantic wide range disarming spell that he soon regretted when all the desks and chairs in the blast radius got a free flight to the front of the room.

The shriek and the retreating shadows around him told him he had scored a successful hit. The very power of the shadows started to wane, the shining sun started spilling back into the dishevelled room and like a draining sink the shadow coalesced into one spot, right back to its epicentre around a very naked girl.

"_What is it with you and naked blondes' lately master?"_ Gaia groaned.

The dog boy said it best about how the males in the room thought about the situation when he whistled appreciatively, Gaia soon falling into line in his head while Takane Goodman blushed brighter than a tomato from embarrassment while futilely trying to cover her private parts.

"Looking hot," Kotaro joked with an eye roll. "Thank you for reminding me why I like blondes so much iincho."

"You," she said through clenched teeth. She had that really rare full body blush but she was seething so much it was like she was waiting for her mind to reboot from all the embarrassment she had to endure because it took her a long time to think up the idea of manipulating her shadow to wrap around herself to feign the appearance of clothing and the blush on her face was matched not long after by the red hot angry look in her eyes. In a rage Takane did a very dumb thing. In her feministic rage she stupidly eagerly pursued further action despite the how one sided the little bullying attempt had been as she conjured up several thick threads of shadow with sharp points like a group of hissing cobras ready to strike. Her shadow spilled out like a rolled up carpet to form a marionette, black with a shapeless body and a white opera mask which multiplied faster than an insidious virus into another then another and so on until ten had formed around the girl.

Negi resisted his urge to point out her folly and instead met her challenge with ease. He needed this little blow out more than he expected he did. One hand produced a lustrous sword of execution while another was clenched so to make a solid surface for him to layer several highly compacted sheets of ice magic around his knuckles until his hand resembled a knuckleduster. The pair of them tensed, the upstart shadow mage with her clothes in ruins and the untouched high mage, both ready to slug it out like heavyweights until finally Kotaro had enough of the spectacle and the likely promise of several magical laws being broken as they raised the stakes and shundo'd in front of the pair with his illusion or whatever he used to hide his hanyo appendages down to bare his fangs and to wag his tail.

"Will you two just chill," Kotaro said lazily. Negi backed away instantly, remembering that mystery one hit kill technique the so called Kirātatchi from the previous night. The new high school student hadn't gotten round to getting a technical explanation of how it worked precisely. It hadn't made a wave or anything to know it was coming at you or offered any other visual clues to tell him anything so he was not too keen to get struck by it. Takane looked ready to take advantage of his hesitation perhaps confusing it for apprehension towards fighting her further until a large black hound comprised of energy emerged off the hanyo's torso and snapped at her. "I do not want to explain to Toko-sensei or commander Imma how a classroom got blown up on my watch." His head snapped over to Negi while pulling his cigarette in his pocket from before into his mouth. "Dude remember that it is not allowed to blow up shit in front of the mundane just for the hell of it. This is not Mundus Magicus and we have laws that turn you into furry animals for exposing magic to the mundane people and iincho, please just fucking piss on the walls if you want to mark your turf. Negi-san is holding back so much that his true power would kick you, your kids and your future kid's children right back to the Stone Age." When Takane snorted, he added dangerously, "He makes Takahata-sensei look like a doped up elephant. Do not keep pushing his buttons."

"But…" Takane was cut off by the hound coming closer and barking at her aggressively.

"Do not try anything," Kotaro said coolly, picking up a chair and sitting on it back to front trying to look as relaxed as he possibly could. His lighter was in his hand like a cheap parlour trick and lit his cigarette despite the rules against it. The blonde looked ready to scold him until another bark and his hound attacking and destroying a shadow soldier got her to cool down. It was clear who had the power here. "Clean up the classroom since you started all this and Negi-san," Kotaro inhaled, his coolness looked patched up again afterwards, "We are going to see Kono-chan and Asuna-chan now."

Negi shattered the ice from his fist theatrically by using a localised disarming spell of darkness that swallowed the ice almost making it look like it had been disintegrated and released the power coating his other hand. "Yes sir," he joked, walking past the girl and exiting the room. Negi waited until he felt Kotaro moving until he started walking down the corridor.

They reached the staircase when Kotaro finally said something. He grabbed him by the shoulder with those clawed hands, looked him in the eye with his ears twitching and said, "That was awesome dude."

"So at least you know she is a natural blonde everywhere," Negi joked back. "But dude you're um…" He pointed at his ears.

"Shit," Kotaro said, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. He closed his eyes and the offending ears disappeared under his mop of black hair, his tail retreated within his body. "I forgot in the moment and… What the hell," Kotaro laughed out loud, "I got a picture of it." Kotaro showed his new screensaver. "This is staying on until I see my girl tonight at band practice." He typed in a few digits and a beep came to Negi's own phone.

"_Wait till Shiori checks her database,"_ Gaia said warningly, _"But the shadow lady was nice to look at. It is a shame she hates you." _If she was in physical form she would no doubt have that all knowing look in her eyes like she knew the secrets of the universe.

"Just so you know my girl back home can see everything I put on this phone including all messages so thanks," Negi deadpanned. He led the way down the stairs to the echoing sound of his succubus mockingly laughing in his head. When they got to the show lockers and changed shoes they were greeted outside by two girls.

The first girl was a plain looking brunette with a homely feel to her. She was wearing her uniform of Mahora girls' middle school with the tartan skirt, red blazer and satchel. She had this gentle look to her eyes that made Negi look at her twice. Those eyes belonged to a distant memory of his with his older cousin back when he was a child. But that aura of hers, the magical one he looked for anyway was so vast, so overwhelming that his breath hitched. This had to be Konoe Konoka, the only child of Konoe Eishun, companion of his father's. Kotaro was not lying or exaggerating when he spoke of that one's power. Without her guard around her the trail of her unrestrained aura would be visible for miles.

Her partner however was one he couldn't place. She looked simple enough. Apart from her heterochromia giving her vibrant blue and green eyes she was your normal looking red head with bells of all things in her hair to make two very original ponytails but underneath the underneath Negi was apprehensive in fact the mage subconsciously hid behind his hanyo friend. She was doing something; something that literally negated every single particle of magical energy Konoka was radiating like a nuclear reactor was negated by an invisible malevolent force the moment they came within three centimetres of the red head and her body.

"Feeling it?" Kotaro asked, rolling his eyes, "She is a magic canceller, a genuine one though not a contracted ability or nothing. She is the real deal."

Having never met one before and only read about it in a vague theoretical journal he found waiting for a portal back to Mundus Vetes one time, being in the presence of one was startling. They were the ultimate powerhouse against magi and every time one popped up history was made and calamity usually followed. The last mention of one had led to the hundred year war between Megalosembria and what used to be the island nations of Ares until they were wiped literally land, ocean everything to be precise from the face of Mundus Magicus. Another example had been the levitating continent of Atlantis that fell to create part of the Himalayas.

"You have a walking piece of bad luck as a friend," Negi muttered. Kotaro gave him a sharp look that Negi returned. It was a superstition that touching a magic canceller meant you were destined to die horribly. "Sorry," he said without meaning it. Pardon him for having issues.

"_I have not even met one of her kind before,"_ Gaia informed him. She had been around the block a few times concerning masters over the centuries on both worlds as she ascended the ranks of power. _"They come and go like the tides. I am not surprised you are afraid of being near her."_ That was her game. Try to embarrass him into playing nice with Asuna from the get go. She never understood the thing called prejudice. She claimed it tasted horrible.

"Asuna-chan knows mages are weird about stuff like that," Kotaro said understandingly before his face looked at him hard and unforgiving, "Be obvious about it and I will break your head off the floor."

"Crystal clear on the obvious thing," Negi said. They walked towards the pair until the red head spotted Kotaro and stormed over.

"Where the hell have you been?" Asuna called out. "I have been waiting for nearly ten minutes."

Kotaro waved his arms out disarmingly and smirked. "The iincho of our new class decided to give my new buddy Negi-san here a lecture. He ended up giving the lecture to her."

"Pleased to meet you," Negi greeted noticing the arched disbelieving look from the magic canceller sent at the hanyo who winced like a kicked puppy, "My name is Springfield Negi."

The brunette seemed to light up with the friendly introduction and smiled, closing her eyes to show her sincerity. "My name is Konoe, Konoka. My father knew yours."

"Yeah I was told," Negi confirmed. "It is nice to meet you."

"Well my name is Kagurazaka Asuna," Asuna greeted in a more neutral tone of voice. He liked this girl. She kept everything formal. She appeared to be a person who got straight to the point. "So you are the new recruit to our tea ceremony club then?"

"I joined the swim team," Negi said confused. Had he missed something? He spotted the scowl from the red head at Kotaro who nearly tripped him up stepping back.

"Hey you dropped this," Kotaro said frantically, handing him a scrap piece of paper explaining that tea ceremony club was code for their operations room. Just then Asuna's cell phone started ringing some cheap Japanese pop band and she picked up the thing from inside her bag and answered it. She didn't speak but there was certainly someone annoyed and loud talking down the line at her. She ended the call and put her phone back into her bag. "Oh yeah I meant the tea ceremony club. Sorry for making that mistake." The brunette bought his act too easily for his taste. His air head senses were tingling.

"_That is not nice of you,"_ Gaia scolded, _"For all you know that air head of hers is part of the spell she is under master."_

"_Peanut gallery not needed here,"_ Negi said to her. She quiet downed immediately.

"I joined the divination club," Konoka said, "I did all that tea stuff too much at home as it is. So who called you Asuna-chan?

"Yeah what is wrong?" Kotaro asked just before a beep from his cell phone rang out. He picked it up, checked his messages and grimaced.

Asuna looked like a girl rushing impatiently to get somewhere. Whatever happened could not be good. "It was Kaede-chan, something has just come up and Set-chan and Kaede-chan got suckered into helping Evangeline out again. Could you walk Kono-chan home for me Ko-chan while I go help out?"

Negi sighed pretty damn dramatically. If he was reading between the lines this Evangeline person was their boss and had called in something that needed the red head to move in on it instantly and Kotaro had been left babysitting. But the name struck a chord in him. Where had he heard that name before?

"I can just get on my bike and head home anyway. Can we reschedule this then?"

The girl looked relieved at his laid back attitude to the sudden change in plans. "As soon as we can I will have Kotaro bring you there and sorry about this."

"It was nice meeting you Konoe-san, Kagurazaka-san." He bowed, without showing any issue with this. He could spend the time setting up his command station for his real job while Kotaro was away. "No doubt I will see you again. See you at the apartment." He accepted the hanyo's half assed wave of acceptance and there Negi flipped his bag over his shoulder and started strutting down the street with a whistle to amuse him.

"Call me Konoka!" Konoka called out, "Daddy told me all about your dad!"

"_Not everything or anything you remember anyway,"_ Negi mused internally. "Thanks Konoka ojou-sama." He had just remembered that particular bit of Japanese. Eishun was supposed to be a rich guy living in a traditional Japanese mansion and besides from his initial impression of the girl she looked every bit the rich little princess.

"Please don't…" The girl with the altered memories started to call out but luckily for him and unlucky for her as he would now take that as a window to always call her that to amuse himself his phone started ringing. Without checking who was calling he answered it.

"Oh Negi," the nervous voice said shakily, "I am sorry for not…"

It was safe to say he remembered why he never went to school before. The bad luck seemed to follow him everywhere in Mahora.

"Shiori," he started, stopped in his tracks by her incoherent babble. "Please calm down."

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A/N Well it seemed like we won't get to meet Evangeline until much later. For all you vampire fans please don't eat me! And for anyone who bothers to read this should their first meeting be during a battle? Or can you all come up with something?


	6. Rock And A Rolling

"Neo Negima"

"Dancing On The Void"

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 6: Rock And A Rolling

Disclaimer: If I freaking owned Negima I would also have created Love Hina and if that were the case Mutsumi would have been with Keitaro. I may be a masochist but come on! At least Mutsumi was gorgeous!

**Member of "Otaku Town"**

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For things to be doing on a Friday night, Negi had a hypothesis that dangling one hundred feet in the air above a busy road whilst illegally modifying a top secret imaging system with weather best described as like raining cats and dogs had to be somewhere low on the list of optimum things to be using your rare free time with.

Negi had a great view of the world tree from where he was hanging from. The green leaves, lit up by powerful spotlights glistened like his state of the art stealth suit, a black mesh number weaved in magi tech fibres designed to refract light with balaclava and night vision goggles sold separately that hugged his entire form and kept the worst of the rain off. But it didn't keep the cold at bay and he was frozen, shivering in fact and it was impeding his task at hand. For god sake his fingers were going blue! Why didn't he just tell Shiori to spend the extra two grand to install the atmospheric array? He was regretting telling her at their last budget meeting to try and skim some off their expenses account.

Anyway he had to focus on the task in front of him and ignore how cold he was feeling. He was currently holding his position to the slimy sandstone wall with his feet and it was an arduous task even with the gravity plates on the soles of his shoes. Down below him were a mass of people going about their daily lives and ignoring the alleyway he was hanging above from, his pitons from his abseiling gear were dug deep into a precariously looking ledge above him. Some were running from the downpour, others tried to beat the water coming hard down on them by using buses or hailing cabs while others looked to have brought umbrellas or simply ignored what was only a splash of harmless liquid and took it like men.

It must be nice for them to have a choice as he had no say in the matter. Negi needed to keep still, the delicate and complex illusion spell he was constantly updating every three minutes as it had told him to do in the scroll needed him to stay as still as possible around the torso region or it would risk flickering and allowing parts of his aura to leak for inquisitive magi to take note of or worse a mundane would see him. The tricky incantation was making up for the fact he couldn't activate the stealth mode of his suit because the hybrid electrical/magical energies that were needed to form a secure invisibility field would register on the panelling of the transmitting device he was tapping into, a pair of blue tubes that flickered on and off in regular intervals and set off a silent alarm.

The imaging relay station, one of nearly three hundred across the city with over two hundred backups was part of what Negi now knew to be called the City Observation And Control Centre or COACC for short the main monitor for which he had seen in Mahora command centre was only a small structure that dangled off the side of a bakery shop that was going through its rush period despite the less than favourable weather with teenagers and out of class students being the most numerous. It was a small thing, no more than two metres across and four metres wide and it had this barrel shape to it that would make it stick out like a sore thumb if it didn't possess a stealth function of its own. Negi had exposed the waterproof circuitry (modern wonder organic circuits) and was cannibalising it slowly while at the same time scanning it with his portable multi spectrum scanner that doubled as a biological scanning device should the need arise. The little device was no bigger than a pocket watch but its holographic display acted like the permeable force field keeping the circuitry he was tinkering with dry when it didn't ripple when water droplets dripping from the ledge above him passed through it.

"_And the third band of the security system should be deactivated now Negi,"_ Shiori said into his headset that in turn transmitted to the receiver in his ear canal. Negi scanned over a piece in his hand with a rod like shape with several grooves and was happy with what his read out told him. He carefully clicked it back into place with its three brothers and the entire area inside it began to hum ominously.

"Yeah I think I adjusted the shift compensator right Shiori. What now?" Negi asked. His hand never stopped scanning the entire inside of the tricky defence system these damn modern Valkyrie machines had as standard. He had been at this for twenty minutes already and was slowly getting fed up with the repetitiveness of his action since he had already done this ten times already over the last six hours. The way they were designed created an unprecedented fashion making standardisation something all mundane industry thrived on didn't exist here and Valkyrie created every single transmitter that little bit different each time meaning he had to be talked through the process with Shiori each time and twice he had nearly set off an alarm. Worst of all was the four times a patrol of the Mahora defence force had passed over him, two of which had that bitch they dared call a class president that had not stopped hounding him since the first day of school with them making him have to stop work and engage the cloaking function of his suit so no sharp eyed mage detected the magic he was using for the illusion.

It was getting infuriating and if this rain did not let up anytime soon, if it _dared _toget any worse or he got another prolonged delay from mishandled mechanical parts or another surprise patrol he would be looking for new businesses to buy his toys from. He hated to admit that he only liked Valkyrie's marvellous creations when they didn't work against him.

"_Now you can attach the transmitter and activate its receiver,"_ Shiori instructed.

Negi opened up a hidden pocket on the front of his mesh shirt, pulled out a tiny thimble sized device that he squeezed slightly so a red light would flash on top and clipped it to the blue flickering tubes. He tapped his ear to briefly activate a microphone transmitter, which was seriously struggling to function with the roaring torrent of rain crashing down all around him to hear the little piece of hardware he had just placed inside beeping to indicate the test signal was activating. He absentmindedly watched the 3D image of the section he was working on the scanner and apparently it was still going to plan.

"Are you receiving the signal?" He ran his scanner over the COACC terminal one more time to make sure no security protocols had been tripped and seemed to relax when nothing untoward was detected. He reset the system parameters by tapping the holographic display and it went to standby mode, the default setting spreading its scanning range to full to encompass a full distance of nine hundred metres in all directions and slipped it into his shirt.

"_I am receiving the test signal,"_ Shiori said with relief clearly in her tone. _"You can finish up."_

Negi carefully placed the components he had taken out back into their correct positions then twisted a section of the barrel shaped mechanism counter clockwise and listened to the hiss from the metal plating retracting over the exposed mechanical innards. The mage pressed a hidden button on top of the newly covered section he had been working on and it shimmered as the cloaking device was reactivated leaving nothing but bare masonry.

The black clothed student peeled his left sleeve back to reveal a miniature control panel with a display of his whole body. He tapped a few keys and Negi turned on the optical camouflage. His whole body became the slimy stone wall, rope and pitons included and he triggered the recall command. He obeyed the insistent tugging of the ropes and Negi was soon ascending with ease onto a flat topped roof.

"I have returned to the rooftop." In front of him the roof was bare. It was not in use as the flat square tiled top was mossy and would have been slippery if the gravity plates on his boots were not still active even if they made him feel twenty pounds heavier. He liked to use them for power walking when he felt inclined to exercise. To make sure he was not disturbed Negi had erected an aversion charm on the only access point, a set of rusty emergency stairs that you could not see if you were a normal person. "What is next on the list?"

"_Well the next stop will be…,"_ Shiori started to say, reading from the scanned map Negi had e-mailed her last night but an insistent beeping stopped her in her tracks. _"That will be Gaia,"_ she stated patiently, the girl had more than enough practice over the years to let the demon have her way. _"You better answer her."_

God he hated the telepathic interference Mahora city was putting up all around here. Outside of official frequencies all telepathic channels were like listening to a poorly tuned radio unless it was close ranged. He was reduced to giving a butter fingers succubus with a natural sense of carefree bordering on carelessness expensive equipment which he could almost prophesise he would need to repair by the end of the night.

"Change to channel beta," he ordered.

There were a few moments of nothing but the heavy rain lashing down upon him his trusty servant said anything._ "Master,"_ Gaia whined.

"What is it?" Negi said, biting his lip to stop the sigh that threatened to come forth. That whiny tone had better not be about the rain. The last four transmissions on their radios had been about the weather and how it was ruining her hair, her clothes, her eyebrows etc basically any excuse to get out of doing her share of the labour and you know what made it worse? The damn things she complained about could be fixed with a tiny spark of her power.

"_It is nearly nine. We promised Kotaro-kun we would go see his band play tonight."_

Negi took a deep breath and slumped against the ledge of the roof. He had totally forgotten about that damn promise. The damn canine hanyo had been harking at him like a harpy for three days, the entire time he had been here about his latest gig at some club nearby. Negi had prepared for the evening in question and left some clothes at a nearby train station. He had the key to the locker around his wrist!

"Change to alpha channel," he ordered. "Shiori?"

"_Yes Negi?"_ she said faithfully.

"Do we," he sighed when the damn beeping resumed from Gaia, the demon he had dared put on hold while she was having a whining fit. "Do we have enough transmitters for you to build a network within the Mahora COACC system?"

"_We might just have enough transmitters to cover the entire city,"_ she said, holding the last word while she checked on her end, _"Yeah we will have it working at around eighty percent efficiency but it will be enough if we piggyback and use the remote interlinks on each transmitter to compensate. All I need to do now is build a new CPU to handle the dedicated servers' encryptions and we can use the COACC whenever we want without Mahora detecting us. I will also be able to monitor anyone when I am done that that uses the system suspiciously you know like a spy within Mahora for Seijou and register their log in details."_

"Well done Shiori," Negi complimented, imagining the excited look she would have from Negi treating her so well. She was like a little puppy eager for praise and it was one of her many favourable traits about her. "When can this be done?" Negi asked kindly. He turned down the volume of Gaia's incessant beeps or cries for attention as he liked to remind himself.

"_Three days I should have it all built if I run a rush on delivery for the parts I will need."_

A sudden surge of inspiration hit him. "Would it take longer for you to build in a program that could search and compile any loose information they have on Seijou and Cosmo Entelecheia?" Negi was especially curious about the latter. These rebels mattered little to him outside of his current parameters within Mahora city. He was working with "neutralise on sight" mentality in regards with his mission. The sooner he finished, the faster he could take off the restraining collar around his neck and go back to his mission. And lessening his chances into bumping into the bigger sharks in the pond Seijou were associating with would be nice too.

"_No it shouldn't,"_ Shiori said with her usual happy tone. He could imagine the blush on her face from the way he spoke to her. In fact she always blushed when they were making pleasant conversation. That was just Shiori. That pleasant naiveté of her was what made him love her so much.

"Then use the green account and pay for swift delivery. Conscript a legion of demons from the defence force to help you if need be just get it done as soon as possible please Shiori."

"_I'll get right on it Negi,"_ Shiori determinedly stated. _"I will not stop until it is finished even if I don't sleep for three days."_

"Don't overdo it but thanks love. I will speak to you soon." He added absently, "Love you" before ending the transmission and changing channels. "Sorry about that Gaia. We can go to the gig now. I forgot we had made that promise," he pacified her well enough as no whining came despite his little trick with the radios.

"_Will you buy me a glass of wine to say sorry?"_ she pouted. She was so easy to read at times like now when she was practically advertising her desire to get out of the rain as she liked to put up more of a fight than this. Gaia being agreeable always carried an ulterior motive. Mind you Negi likewise grabbed gleefully at the excuse to get out of the rain.

"It's a mundane place where the age limit is twenty and I can't walk in with a glamour spell on since we are meeting Kotaro's band mates." Gaia was stopped in her tracks from rebutting when he concluded with finality in his tone that left no room for argument. "So no you can't have any wine unless you plan to buy it yourself."

"_No fun,"_ Gaia declared, _"I will meet you at the station then."_

"I will be there in ten." Negi deactivated his radio and then began dismantling his abseiling gear. It took some time to clean up the evidence of his tampering of city property requiring spells to cover up the holes made by the pitons on the upraised ledge, an incantation to scatter any stray magical traces from the broken illusion spell and a scrubbing wind spell to remove any exterior traces on the various spells that maintained and hid the COACC terminal.

He needed to avoid letting the dean be aware that he suspected someone within Mahora city was a spy working for the other side for many reason such as he may know about the spy already and was running a counter operation already that Negi might compromise by advertising his suspicions in any forum the spy might have access to. The other was simply with his limited understanding of the dean Negi could not be sure the old man might not take offence with Negi suspecting his people of treason.

It was a bitch working behind the old man with the super powers back but this was why he was being so secretive and doing something so unorthodox never mind illegal and death sentence worthy thing like bugging the most sophisticated tracking hardware in existence. There was an unusually high concentration of omnyou practitioners making Shiori's snooping into the Mahora personnel files pointless since she had nothing to go on with how far she had broken into their firewalls and going any further took the risk of detection and the dean getting pissed at him and Negi did not want to provoke that old man. Shiori had tried to tap into the COACC system before but the girl had almost blown up the entire Sanctuary mainframe from the dedicated programming code Mahora city employed being so incompatible. It was another lovely feature of the deviously intelligent Valkyrie Corporation.

Negi once done with his work pulled off his balaclava and night vision goggles. His long red hair quickly began to stick to his face from the heavy downpour. The red head knew he had little time left so the mage snapped off a cancellation incantation for the aversion spell on the stairs then with a cartwheel jump over the ledge he plummeted to the empty alley below where an extension of his magical barrier head him off to the rubbish covered pathway below to slow his fall to a crawl.

The mage paid careful attention to look like a normal pedestrian by concealing his balaclava and night vision goggles under one arm ahead of Negi slipping into the night crowd, switching off his cloaking device as he did. He behaved like a typical teenager on a weekend, a strangely dressed one but normal enough that he ran through the sidewalk, splashing puddles in his haste to get to his destination without receiving much attention from the public. Negi ducked, weaved and once nearly dived through the congested walkways, earning scowls from the less energised middle aged people, giggles from love sick teens off to karaoke or whatever social activity they had planned and even got a ticking off from a passing traffic cop when he jaywalked across a busy street with a cab rank until he could spot the station up ahead.

The main train station in Mahora city reminded him of a grand old monument that had hit hard times like a Victorian era piece with white washed pillars, a grand marble staircase and an old fashioned ticket office with adjoining automated ticket machines and an alcove that sat the blue foot lockers he was looking for that had been renovated from where the toilets used to be judging from the faded kanji lettering the whitewashed ceiling failed to conceal. There were rail workers in their fancy dress uniforms and caps looking to be helpful and one of them nodded to him when he passed regardless of his unusual attire to open up his locker with his key hidden in his sleeve and took out a holdall. Looking around and feeling like a exhibitionist for a short time, Negi squashed that feeling down hard by distracting his thoughts by whacking another of his infamous aversion spells, commanding it with the instinctual need for all mundane people in the station to never look at the foot lockers and then as casual as one would use a hairdryer the red haired mage used the wind to dry his hair.

His suit came as a one piece so he stripped down to his boxers in one movement and put on a white shirt with a high collar that went well with his dress trousers and jacket. He artfully made up his hair, ironed out any creases with his shirt with another simple wind spell and then put on his leather jacket. Negi slipped on his boots and then dumped his working clothes into his locker and secured it safely with another aversion spell, this time to stop people robbing from it better yet for weak magical entities they would be going anywhere near it.

Negi was just about to slip on his designer motorcycle leather jacket when a wet pair of arms wrapped right around his muscular waist. A mess of wet silver hair nuzzled his shoulder and made a groaning sound of contentment he swore he only ever heard before from Shiori when they were "busy". Negi rolled his eyes, hell it was his standard response with this being as she had deliberately kept the wet look probably to make everyone stare at her soaked see through clothes and get a snack on her way here.

"Hello master," Gaia enunciated into his ear, taking the moment of course to blow on his earlobe. She leaned her bust into his back and dug her delicate equipment into his waist.

"Did you do your quota?" Negi enquired, turning round in her strong grip and stare into her green eyes. He returned her hug briefly to appease her and make her let go. She had chosen attire similar to his uniform and wore her equipment pouch with her scanner and radio headset sat nice and tight across her hip. He had to bite his lip to avoid giving the succubus an aroused reaction to her wet look or Negi wouldn't stop hearing about it all night.

"I did every site on the list Shiori told me to do," Gaia said with her deviously arrogant smirk. "Did I do good master?" Negi collected her equipment belt and examined it for damage. Just as he suspected he took note of a crack on his spare circular scanner, sighed loudly at her blatant vandalism before giving up on handing her a lecture on respecting the tools of his trade and just stuffed it into the holdall and shut the blue door. He tapped his pockets, looking for his keys and wallet until it was thrust in front of him by his faithful ever helpful demon.

"Thank you," Negi said dryly, taking his things back and then clipping a new friend to a set of two keys which marked his motorcycle key, dorm room and now his locker key. He checked his wallet for missing funds and then remembering his cell phone was in the inside pocket Shiori had specially added to this jacket and quirked an eyebrow when it was still there when his light fingered demon had extracted his wallet and keys without him noticing.

"I want to get to the gig! I want to meet the band! I want to…" Gaia was suddenly silenced by a gesture of his hand. She frowned at him and then pushed away his hand to continue her rant. "Can we just go now please?" She started dancing like she had ants in her pants that made her look more like an agitated child needing the bathroom instead of the adult form she was wearing.

Negi chose to bite back a retort and instead removed the aversion spell keeping people from looking at the foot lockers and gestured for her to get moving.

"Move," Negi ordered. The girl demon giggled jovially and took off still looking sexy with her rain soaked clothing.

"You like that spell way too much master," she chided flirtatiously, wagging her index finger. She ducked into a darkened alcove and changed into a red mini skirt and black top with a cut in the middle midriff. Her height rose two inches from her insane heels but she did put on a leather jacket to match her master.

"If it works," Negi shrugged, zipping up his jacket. "Ladies first."

"Thank you," Gaia said with a sway of her hips. She was back in her usual groove; her whole aura seemed to light up and with so many commuters in the station blatantly staring at her back in her element. Negi fell into line close behind with his hands in pockets trying to look inconspicuous but he was getting a fair number of stares as well from the usual crowd of school girls. To achieve maximum impact for the attention seeking demon she put her arm around the poor mage much to his dismay and grabbed an offered umbrella from a balding middle aged businessman in an expensive looking suit. The reason he was so willing was no doubt a blatant manipulation of his emotions.

Negi and Gaia sheltered under the black umbrella close together down the main street. Kotaro had shown Negi how to get to the small underground club in person the previous morning and since they had time before the band were scheduled to perform his succubus appeared to want to make their trip through the biggest shopping district and entertainment complex into a date of sorts. They window shopped, took a look at what movies were playing at the multiplex and had a blazing argument about why his succubus could not browse a lingerie shop that ended up with a tug of war regarding his wallet and only served to get them wet again and the need to buy a cheap new umbrella when Gaia in her infinite wisdom struck him in the head with their old one so hard his individual barrier actually registered the stress impact.

Their final destination took them in a dank little alley with the smell of fish to greet them. All around them was a number of small walkways that fed into a grid of private parking garages for staff cars to the various businesses they served. It was all the same except for the distant sounding thrum of hard rock music next to an underground stairway manned by two unhappy meaty bouncers with pocket lights. As they got closer to the source of the noise they could just pick out just underneath street level a flashing sign stating the name of their club "Icicle" in bright neon blue.

"Kotaro plays at the best joints," Negi commented sarcastically, holding his nose from the smell. "I can only imagine what bad venues he used to play in."

"Maybe his debut was at a public bathroom master?" Gaia japed, tightening her hold on her master, "Or a fish farm?"

"Sorry guys but we just stopped people going in," meat head one said apologetically upon the pair approaching the bouncers. It came out like a seasoned guard dog barking at a cat.

"Look my buddy Kotaro said he was going to let us in." Negi ignored the second meat head's dismissive snort. His partner was speculative until he took the three seconds to check a clipboard he was carrying with soggy paper.

"Name?" he requested.

"Negi Springfield and guest," Negi recited as drilled by the hanyo ten times back in the dorm.

"Code word?" the meat head with the clipboard asked.

Did the dog boy tell him a code word? He had been tuning the guy out while reading some archive footage from the Sanctuary database uploaded onto his laptop. _"Gaia what was that again."_

"_Its doggie,"_ Gaia said, giggling in his head. _"He only told you like nine times master."_

"The code word is doggie," Negi said. "Kotaro told me to be here."

"Your name is here sir," meat head one agreed, "Go on in." Meat head two encouraged them quickly down the slippery stairs and opened the door for the pair to bombard them with the sounds of solo guitar playing a song he knew from heart including the words…

"Fuck we are so late," Negi mumbled. The aspiring guitarist was not going to be happy with Negi. It was all the damn dog talked about when Negi couldn't tune him out when he was doing his homework, researching information that he was allowed to have from the Mahora city archives or from third party sources and keeping Gaia out of the kitchen. He had only shut up about the damn band watching him read a book to erect some enchantments around the dorm room similar to the ones Negi had built painstakingly at home with his blood as a focus. The mutt added some paper talismans for variety sake and the end product was pretty secure or at the very minimum nobody was going to drop in during the night anymore.

Gaia said something as the stage came into view up front but was drowned out by the thunderous music. The stage was on the lower of two levels with the entrance of the club leading to a balcony with a cubby hole for a bar and place to buy your tickets.

"_I doubt he'll be able to tell in this light,"_ Gaia said to Negi mentally like she had been repeating herself a few times. The lights were deliberately few and dim just to keep everyone but the focus, the stage with a topless Kotaro having his little solo with his eyes closed to grab the most attention.

Kotaro Inugami was jamming away on his guitar frantically, the crowd that were all head banging to the song he was singing. The guy was really into it and putting on a good show, filled with his inner passion and moody lyrics. The dog boy had a single spotlight following him when he prowled across the stage with girls screaming out in ecstasy. Negi was enjoying the drums and the awesome bass guitar booming alongside its main star, the parts he had not heard until now, the melody of the booming bass winding and weaving with its friends guitar and drum kit but without it losing its way or being drowned into obscurity.

"_Who would have known Kotaro-kun played with such an awesome band,"_ Gaia sighed mentally as she approached the stage next to a woman who stood out in a bad way with a fancy white dress with long blonde hair and a haughty demeanour that reminded him to much of the iincho from hell. Negi paid for the tickets, bouncing his head to the beat to pay the entrance fee to an equally entertained goth girl in black everything from her obvious dyed hair, pouting midnight lips, spider silk thigh height skirt and torn black blouse revealing her ebony bra. It contrasted sharply with her ivory skin. _"I love music from this era. I can't believe I once thought Beethoven would be the definitive expression of your species art."_

With the way Gaia acted, adapting with the times as if she was born into this timeline, Negi forgot sometimes that she had been around for millennia. But sometimes with dropped comments like they had been around yesterday about famous dead people, long since departed on to the next world for centuries Negi was reminded of how old she was. He had always wondered if his sense of time was barely the sneeze in the bigger picture of this demon and the life she would probably treat like an eternal pleasure cruise with the odd battle in the middle for excitement.

"_I much prefer old rock music myself,"_ Negi chortled, standing next to her on the balcony looking down. He had ended up bamboozling the goth girl at the counter so Gaia could eagerly take her glass of wine to his own cola with ice that earned him a kiss on the cheek. He was abstaining since being in Mahora meant being on the job at all times so no boozing for him. Negi would celebrate the completion of this mission with a bottle of his uncle's fresh spring wine. _"But this stuff isn't bad either. Nice and moody and it seems to suit Kotaro."_

The song came to a climax with a drum solo from a young girl, probably fifteen or sixteen like him with short brown hair tied into a ponytail and beaming brown eyes. Her outfit played to her considerable physical fitness and bust size by being tight as hell. A denim skirt that rid up so you could see her blue striped panties when she kicked the drum pedal and a top that was barely a step away from a washcloth on her stacked frame. Kotaro was playing right beside her as she took the centre of the stage by storm with a lit cigarette dangling from her mouth.

Kotaro approached the microphone centre stage; sweating but happy like someone who had just came out of the gym. It was hot inside the underground room but the sweaty masses were hollering and cheering. The blonde girl next to Gaia was exhibiting unusually possessive actions, kind of like jealousy as she tightly held onto the brass balcony hand rest as if any one step from the girls below to try and touch Kotaro would be dealt with lethal force.

"_She is seriously jealous master,"_ Gaia told him excitedly, _"I could feed off her all night and her personality wouldn't change one bit."_ It was fortunate the lighting was extremely poor since her eyes would be all black from the feasting underway. What Gaia was describing was unusually rare. Humans were ambivalent contradictions of emotions, feelings and sensations at all times lacking the ability to stay in one specific feeling as our complex and individual feelings rendered each individual unique. Why one brother from one family could be a hedonistic blasphemous sinner while another brother a simple church going, god fearing puritan. To feel one emotion so intensely made him suspect that this person was the girlfriend Kotaro had spoken about reverently like a minor god was draping his arm.

"_Engage her in conversation and find out if she is dating that dog. I want to meet the girl who can manage to keep him to one woman."_

"_With pleasure," _Gaia declared, her gossip mongering skills were coming into their own. She turned round, did that posh trick she knew where she swirled her wine and tasted it like a professional wine taster, a skill she picked up in Italy during the 1700's. It got the out of place rich girl's attention and Gaia began to whisper during the intermission with her new blonde friend.

"Well guys this will be our last song," Kotaro announced to an orchestra of disappointed moans. "But the last song will star our very own idol Akira Okochi!"

What stepped out forward to a plethora of applause was the most beautiful girl he had seen all night. She was tall, slender and built like one who belonged in the sea with a carpet of black hair that ran down to her knees. She wore her long, strapless red number that paid attention to what she was packing out front and slithered its way down to her waist, hanging over with black pants and proper boots. She was decked out in piercings and gave that smouldering stare that stole your breath from you. He caught her eyes, winked and the girl didn't even stop to reflect before returning the wink with a blown kiss. Kotaro had caught the interaction as he gave him thumbs up in his general direction.

"Not to take you away from your blatant cheating on poor Shiori," Gaia said, speaking rather loudly, "But may I introduce you to Kotaro's girlfriend, Yukihiro Ayaka-san."

So it turned out Negi was correct. The girl in question bowed slightly with a refined manner about her that he had before mistaken for being haughty or stuck up. She was a bombshell, a distinguished beauty from up front and personal like an angel trapped in the bowels of hell. Ayaka was the white purity against the darker stained colours of the crowd enjoying the show and performers playing on the stage. She even had a little handbag that could barely hold her keys and cell phone, the picture of the spoiled rich princess rebelling with her choice of boyfriend.

Negi took her dainty hand and shook it firmly. The girl eyed him up closely in all probability making a first impression then shook his hand back. The music started up again by then, the bass guitar commencing the last song with a deep, mellow beat.

"My name is Springfield, Negi," he greeted with a smile, raising the volume of his voice as the drums from the smoking chick kicked in, "I am your boyfriend's new roommate. It is nice to meet you."

She just seemed to relax with the polite introduction. "He has told me about you and your sudden transfer to his high school. It is nice to meet you Springfield-san."

"Call me Negi," Negi exclaimed, spying the bass guitarist properly, a retiring sort of mouse with an attitude since she had her eyes closed and like the drummer a cigarette dangling from her mouth. She was tiny, fragile looking thing but the way she was bashing her cowgirl boots into the floor you could sense a quiet sort of intensity that suited her entirely. She had aquamarine coloured short hair that just caressed her neck in length and her clothing screamed of a hardcore goth. Her top had a devil on the front with swear words in blood red, her skirt was down to her knees which her red striped knee socks overlapped to her boots but it was the frilliest thing he had seen with ruffles and the piercings! She had a chain piercing that clipped to the top and the bottom at the lobe of her ear on both sides, two studs on her nose and when she was doing her brief solo she was displaying the glittering silver on her tongue like her mouth was the inside of a clam.

Then the tall girl began to sing and Negi just lost his sense of the world, ignoring the dog's lady friend to listen in closely to the virtuous but dirty velvety tones that came out of those rouge lips. He developed tunnel vision where people, places and reality blurred except for the junior or maybe high school singer singing. He was reminded about something called a Yamato Nadeshiko he had read in a Japanese guidebook before he had even came to Mahora city in preparation for the Library Island job. Akira Okochi was the pinnacle from his knowledge of that principle.

"_Master,"_ Gaia scolded, _"That was not nice ignoring Ayaka-chan like that."_

"_Hello this is Negi's brain talking. I'm not in right now since I am listening to the hot chick sing so please leave a message after the tone." _Negi's flippancy earned him a dig in his ribs. He ignored it and was struck again only this time with enough force to send him staggering almost over the edge. Gaia did not look amused at him when he turned to scowl at his petulant demon servant but the blonde woman had a sense of humour unlike a certain other blonde who eerily looked eerily alike Ayaka about his attitude as she was smiling at the way the mage was being scolded for his shenanigans.

"_Master,"_ Gaia gasped telepathically.

"_I didn't mean it," _Negi lied poorly. His demon rolled her eyes, making sure Ayaka saw what she was doing who laughed and bared pearly white teeth."I am sorry Yukihiro-san. I kind of…"

"Don't worry about it,"Ayaka shouted at him when the musical chorus kicked in. The bass and guitar were staring at each other face to face blasting out their hard beat while the tall Akira did this impressive choreographed dance routine."Everyone likes to listen to her when she is performing. Half of the guys here came to see her and Akira-chan is my classmate. I'll make sure to introduce you to her after the show."

Negi must have made his feelings clear about how much he would like to entertain that idea with the latest stab into his ribs from his demon spilling wine on his jacket._ "Master," _Gaia warned_, "Remember Shiori?"_

"_I'm hardly going to take her back to my room," _Negi deadpanned,_ "I am allowed to admire beautiful women." _Negi nodded his thanks to Kotaro's girlfriend and went back to listening to the song that finished a minute later, Akira's voice entrancing everyone in the underground club.

"_Are you finished staring at her?"_ Gaia said disdainfully.

"_What worried?"_ Negi teased. He had been looking a bit more than usual but it was hard not to. He had heard sirens with less enchanting voices than this woman. She had real talent, a proper singing voice like one of those Hellas maidens who sang at their traditional solstice festival who spent their entire lives living pure and untainted lives in the belief they were being examples for the rest of their people.

"_More worried about you,"_ Gaia said. _"Your emotional energies are saturated in ways that do not bode well with me or Shiori." _Gaia's words made him unsettled. He had only been enjoying the show, Kotaro had a great ass kicking band playing music he really liked to immerse in and the highlight was their lead vocalist but succubi understood the human minds in ways man even with magic to aid them had come to understand. The mind, the vessel of the soul was still a great mystery in how it worked exactly.

"I do hope you are not implying I am that way inclined towards her," Negi whispered into her ear. "I will not forget Shiori or our deal Gaia," Negi scathingly added. He beamed at the inquisitive blond and as usual it removed any tension from Ayaka. "We are just having a tiff."

"Well if you two have made up maybe we can go since they are finished now so do you want to follow me backstage?" During their argument the band had packed up and disappeared somewhere backstage. The back wall of the stage, dark from the way the lights aimed at an angle that didn't shine on it turned out on a closer investigation to be a heavy curtain. A new band spilled out of the hidden backstage, a boy band with strange haircuts and gold piercings on their eyebrows.

Negi stepped down the stairs, feeding past a steady stream of people who were standing on them to look at the stage with Gaia leading the way while tightly holding his hand. A brief feeling of guilt dripped into his conscious and Negi squeezed her hand painfully back to show his grievance with her shameless tweaking of his feelings. Ayaka in her heels lagged behind a little until Negi offered his other hand, knowing it was a bit too intimate a gesture for a Japanese woman who was raised more formally but the girl took it with a little almost indistinguishable blush as she took it.

"You might want to let her lead," Negi chided, "Since she knows where we are meant to be going."

Sufficiently corrected of her mistake, Gaia stopped to let Ayaka take the lead who took the passing apology when she passed Gaia and into the mob below that were moshing to the sounds of heavy metal. A member of staff spotted the blonde woman that wasn't hard considering what she had chosen to wear and made a path with his boulder shaped torso into an area with a well hidden back door spray painted "Backstage" in neon green. The man used a card key around his neck to open the door and ushered the trio inside.

Backstage was like staring into the sun. The sudden bright lights and the white walls nearly blinded Negi and he missed the journey to the door to the dressing room, even nearly missed the dressing room door but experience had told him to remember where he had turned left or right until he had a sudden need for the bathroom.

"Well here we are," Ayaka said cheerfully.

"I need to use the bathroom," Negi half said, half asked. Ayaka giggled and pointed down the hall for him.

"Second right," Ayaka directed. "Just follow the signs for the emergency exit and you cannot possibly miss it."

"Thank you and please go on without me," Negi said assuring them both. His first meeting with the pretty singer could wait. Gaia was frowning again but let go of his hand and Negi noticed his hand was all red from how tightly she had been grasping him.

"Don't be long," Gaia hissed to him. The girl did not like being separated from her masters. It was apparently a well founded fear as five of her previous masters/mistresses died when they were out of her sight. Negi waited until she stepped into the room with cheers, second hand smoke and a happy sound from Kotaro before going on his quest for the bathroom.

Negi found it easy enough. He followed the signs for the emergency exit as instructed, checking his red hair and clothes on a mirror he passed. Negi reflected on Gaia's warning and anticipating the meeting with the singer with much relish when he was all cleaned up and did his business. The teenager was just about to open the bathroom door when he was stopped in his tracks by an explosion coming from the open emergency exit he had ignored in his haste to pee.

Some frantic shouting occurred and more explosions rattled the walls, cracking the plaster ceiling with acrid smoke belching into the hallway. Negi blew the smoke back outside with a blast of coned air, pushing his personal barrier completely forward with enough power to block an anti-tank shell and ran to the source of the noise. When he got within range of the door some sort of missile flew into his arms.

It was an older woman, willowy tall compared to Akira's tall muscular form with broken coke bottle glasses. She had the same length of hair as Akira but she had a more homely look with two strands, one on both sides of her hair and she wore more modest attire in a green turtleneck sweater and blue jeans. Scattered around her were several of those paper talismans Kotaro used only torn to pieces.

"All I ask for is one night off," Negi commented. It was just typical for now of all the times for Gaia to be missing. Who was beating shit out of a talisman user? Was it his lucky day and his first encounter with Seijou were to be scheduled for tonight? Or was it those Cosmo Entelecheia bastards… No he was letting his imagination run wild and his adrenaline levels started to rise in anticipation of such an explosive encounter that would shake the very foundations of this city. But these days the once mighty group that had made such a big bang in the last great magical war were reduced to church mice unless in isolated regions where no regional armies could get to them. This was way out of character if this was Cosmo Entelecheia causing the situation.

Negi gently put her down and decided to wait for what was coming because surely somebody had to hear that explosion. His magic started weaving around him, physical reinforcement magic made his body stronger; his unconscious loaded a delayed barrage of darkness arrows in line with the stance he made to pounce forward.

The wait began and like an awkward moment between strangers meeting for the first time it hung in the air like sitting in a freezer butt naked. It tensed every muscle like stone, making him twitchy when nothing happened until finally to his glee almost at getting to hit something a darkly dressed masked shadow man jumped into the hallway with a shundo to meet Negi's super sharp reactions. He focused a darkness arrow lined jumping spiral kick to the side and a barrage of magical arrows that converged on his left palm that blasted the shinobi as they were called in the database article Negi had read on them like a torpedo not so dissimilar from the way the woman that had speared into him out into the back alley. In pursuit of his first potential lead Negi did not forget to secure the woman in case this was an internal thing between members of Seijou by flaring his aura for those sensitive to it to sense it. But it was unnerving how nobody had come to investigate that noise at all. He took time to postulate, performed some basic magical tests too with no conclusive results to find out why until his distracted memory recalled that the girl from her build and the amount of shredded papers could be most likely one of those incredibly rare talisman users, again something he had read from the database the dean gave all his operatives access to when they worked for Mahora who exclusively used these imbued foci in battle.

Negi decided she was unconscious enough not to be a threat to him right now and exited the club into pitch black. The rain had stopped but it was cold outside from all the puddles. He quickly orientated where he was according to his environment which was a large back area used for storage or deliveries. Instead of seeing where his prey was he followed the groans to a spread-eagled ninja with a red hole in his shirt making Negi think he had wounded him badly until he discovered it was only red mesh.

(Latin) "Rastel Maskil Magister, Heaven's voice, blow ill fortune upon the sinners that dwell within your domain. Render body free from soul and shake the foundations of the living. Frost god's shivering breath." A blast of freezing air hit the enemy's body and Negi was sure now that the person was unconscious. He ran his hand over the body from knee to shoulder and ice began to materialise until the enemy was entombed in six inches of frozen water.

Negi secured the area with yet another aversion spell that covered the entire back lot. It was still dark until a light started glittering from the back door where the sleeping beauty that had careered into him was standing there, a wisp of fire around her body. She was still dazed; her cracked glasses looked to be goners but she was not alone.

Kotaro stood with his arms folded and glaring at the shadow man Negi had locked up in a binding of ice while his sexy and enigmatic Gaia was looking frenetic and much less like her usual special self towards Negi like she wanted to run over to her master and embrace him and make sure he was unharmed but she was holding the wounded talisman user over one shoulder. Negi could guess she wouldn't hesitate to drop the spectacled woman if the need was great enough.

"Are you alright, master?" Gaia demanded. "We found Kotaro-kun's friend unconscious in the hall after I felt your aura flare."

"Why didn't you hear the explosion?" Negi asked curiously.

"We felt a rumbling in the dressing room but that always happens when someone is stamping on the stage," Kotaro said, lighting a cigarette from his shirt pocket. He took a puff and exhaled, "But I heard no big bang and my ears can hear a pin drop."

The mystery was not some paranoid fancy of his. He could only trust it was a one off with no magical means of suppressing noise was spotted by his earlier spells. He examined the scene, seeing only way out of the boxed in compound using what the new lighting present. Negi could make out blast marks and the leftovers of more tattered paper. In one corner he could actually pick out a clump of paper at the other end… Negi reacted without thinking, shundo'd and heel kicked the bundle of soaked paper, hitting a solid mass that did not react to the strike suggesting he was dead.

"I killed one of them before the shadow man hit me," the mystery talisman user declared smugly, "They just jumped me while I went out for some air waiting for Kotaro in his dressing room. I merged an explosive to that origami ghost's chest and at that range he should be dead." A drop of the fire broke off from its larger mass and levitated over to where Negi was standing and indeed all he could see was blood and gore that hadn't spattered everywhere suggesting the poor bastard had imploded.

"So who are you then?" Negi asked, not liking the way she enjoyed killing this guy. She reminded him of a proud cat that had just killed a bird and presented it to their master. His angry voice must have startled her and this sent his intent spiking to make the woman freeze and her smug smile turned into a trembling lip. "Are you with us or with them?"

"Gaia told you she is my friend and I can vouch for her Negi," Kotaro declared, moving in front of his friend, "Her name is Chigusa Amagasaki and she just goes to university here. She is with the shinmei-ryu, our side!"

"Master, please behave yourself!" Gaia coaxed gently, "The woman might be arrogant but her heart is pure."

Chigusa looked irked at Gaia's description of her person but was cowed from Kotaro shaking his head. It seemed the woman was a talker who let her mouth flap dangerously.

"My name is Springfield, Negi," Negi introduced as he relaxed his stance. "It isn't the best of times for us to be acquainted but I need someone to contact the man in charge tonight. I can't recall who that is."

"It is Seruhiko-sensei so it's cool," Kotaro said pleasantly, taking out his phone from his pants pocket. He typed in a number, mouthing he could not use telepathy without a specific talisman he didn't have on him at that time and rang out. "Seruhiko-sensei," Kotaro greeted, "Yeah we need a body grabbing squad in the parking lot for the Icicle. Yeah and we need a retrieval team for a shadow man. Make sure to phone Gandolfini-sensei especially for this. Yeah he has wanted to interrogate one for a long time and who caught him? It was Springfield Negi-san, employee type special contractor number one two three beta gamma. Yeah I know he will go crazy it was Negi I know. See you later. An aversion spell is already up to keep the crazies away so take your time. We'll head back to the dressing room so my band mates do not catch on to anything or start asking questions. Yeah I'll get a report from Negi later. Goodbye." He hung up the phone.

"So who is this Seruhiko-sensei guy?" Negi asked. He thought he had memorised the list of staff he was supposed to know already but it seems one had fallen through the cracks.

"He is a good guy who teaches elementary school kids and is a bit more laid back than Gandolfini mind you Seruhiko-sensei doesn't lead one of the nightly patrol teams and special operations units. We better…"

Negi didn't catch the end of whatever the mutt had said because with a sharp kind of pain to his temple, the magic user sensed his aversion field collapse; his instincts told him to dive for cover before a squelching noise from say the blood spattered skull of the shadow man exploding tore through the air. The mage who got back to his feet using only his shoulders and Gaia handing Chigusa to a startled Kotaro immediately searched the skyline, locating on Negi's end four possible areas where a shot could have been taken. There was no point in checking if their captured man was alive or not. A headshot was a kill shot.

"What happened?" Chigusa screamed. Before Negi could stop her, the frightened woman threw some more of those pieces of paper up into the air. They met together then the paper split apart creating a stream of purple energy like lightning from each talisman with one remaining where they had converged to act as a circuit. While she did this she mumbled a very long incantation until the beams of energy vanished but Negi could sense a barrier thick enough to buy any magically inclined warrior enough time to teleport the hell out of there long enough that no traces of would have dissipated. "We're safe now. We are sealed in a dimensional disturbance that doesn't allow…"

"We could have tracked them down," Negi growled, "I am capable of high speed aerial assaults and so is Gaia." Negi enclosed the dead shadow man with a wind field and pulled upright just as Negi encased his hand in a layer of non reactive dark matter to keep the evidence from being contaminated to pluck out a bloody super thin bullet cased in some kind of brown metal. It had small rectangular ridges all along its jacket and a burnt out silver circle like a spell breaker on the tip, just like the explosives he liked to use on heavily shielded objects.

"What is that master?" Gaia asked, examining the object closely, "Is it some kind of bullet?"

"If I had brought my multi spectrum scanner I could tell you precisely but," Negi's roving eyes spotted some markings near the end and aimed them into the light Chigusa's fire stream was still making, "It has a serial number but the company logo is burnt off not that matters since we can probably track down where it was manufactured and who it was sold to. I am guessing its some kind of spell piercing bullet using something like my magical dissipaters do to make an opening in defence fields at high speed to let the bullet travel through to its target."

"You can add this to your report but dude Akira-chan is waiting to meet you man," Kotaro said light heartedly, giving Negi more than enough reason to drop this for now. Any findings would be given to him by the dean anyway on request.

"Why are we still hanging around then?" Negi carefully slipped the bullet back into the poor dead shinobi's head, took one more look around the rooftops hoping in vain to still see the sniper who just added a new twist to the puzzle. From what the Mahora intelligence database emphatically stated Seijou was a small, underfunded terrorist group with ideas above their means to implement them. They were an ideology with an extremist movement but they didn't have the funds to buy sophisticated magi-tech. Cosmo Entelecheia did have the resources to supply Seijou but what Negi knew of them contradicted that argument. Cosmo had fingers in many other pies than just Seijou but they tended to offer passive support like information and the occasional operative to help them on operations that would be impossible otherwise but never equipment that could be traced back to their nests.

"Master?" Gaia queried with concern. She put her hand on his shoulder and made the red haired mage look at him. Her black feeding eyes sampled deeper beyond the surface in a transparent attempt to find out what he was thinking from his emotions.

"It's okay," Negi assured, pushing her hand away. "Let's get to the party. We can't do anything else right now."

They would head back to the party and enjoy themselves. When they got to the dressing room the party was back in full swing. Akira met Negi and Negi met Akira where they hit it off as friends almost instantly when Negi broke the ice by singing the first line of her song badly with a saucy smirk that she luckily took for poor humour. Gaia would later recount it as possibly the worst day of her life as Negi practically left her to her own devices. They would drink (not Negi of course) and the mage would find out quite a lot of things, not the least that the shy, socially awkward Ako seemed to be half feline with the way she cuddled up to Akira and almost purred when intoxicated. Akira didn't drink but was chatting to Negi about school, managing to balance that and trying to calm Ako down.Chigusa turned out to be a drunk that always passed out and Ayaka demonstrated how to control a horny Kotaro Inugami when she threatened to cut off his penis with her fingernails when he tried to grope her while under the influence of half a bottle of vodka.

Not once would the circumstances of this evening cross his mind. The great mage's mind was occupied on other topics but in the future not so long from now he would regret not locating the source of that bullet, he would lament his slowness in reacting as to why he didn't work swiftly on the case.

No he would wake up the next day in his own room alone with the pleasant memory of making the acquaintance of Okochi Akira.

XreviewX

Sorry to rush the ending there, the chapter was running a bit long but that scene didn't really matter as you will all see a bit more of Akira Okochi in the future. Now when do I include her ladyship Evangeline? I have put it off for a bit. Care to help decide if now or later will do? Oh yeah thanks to Maneyan awesome Negima writer that he is for some help with the end of this chapter!


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